It was young love. He wrote her a letter, trying to capture a poetic expression of how much she meant to him. He wrote, “For you, I would cross the hottest, driest desert. I would swim the deepest ocean and brave the wildest storm. I would climb the heights of Everest such is the depth of my love for you.
PS. I won’t be over this Saturday. The forecast is calling for snow!”
There was One who never echoed empty words. John the apostle “Captures the Wonder” in statements that philosophers have tried to improve for centuries. Countless attempts to reiterate the message with fresh flavour have not been easy. Eugene Peterson comes as close as any.
(SLIDE)
John 3:16 (The Message) "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.
John 3:16 has been the best known, best loved, most often recited verse of the whole Bible. It has been suggested that it summarizes the gospels for deep thinkers and expresses the faith of the most illiterate believer. Reverend Edward Hastings calls John’s beautiful expression “one majestic, sweeping, comprehensive sentence {that expresses} the essence of Christian belief.”
Let’s trace this amazing love story and try to capture some of the mysteries of God’s love for me (personalize it – everyone say, FOR ME!)
1. The Fact of Love (SLIDE)
"This is how much God loved the world:”
I remember a time when as a young boy and later as a young man, there were few questions about God existing. It seemed we struggled more with trying to understand who God was. Now it seems people mostly grapple with whether or not God IS. Is there a God, a Being who is the sole, supernatural Majesty who brought all of life into existence?
The fact of love can only exist as far as one is able to read this story of incarnate love and believe the account and decide that God IS the Mastermind of the universe and everything that exists; that humanity was formed by his hand and given life by his breath. This is the starting point that will allow us to accept “This is how much God loved the world:”
(SLIDE) Until you have decided that “there is only one God, who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship,” you cannot move on. (SA Doctrine #2!)
Step one is to decide what “God” means to us before we can conclude the fact or fiction of love.
Reginald Bibby conducted a survey in 2002, which is recorded in his book “Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada” shares that “God continues to do well in the polls…91% of Canadians indicated that they believed in God or a higher power at least some of the time, 48% express unequivocal belief in God…” Further results by Bibby indicate that 26% have an unsure belief in God while only 6% are doubters and 2% hold no belief in God whatsoever.
What percentage base do you fit into?
Those of us who are among the 48% need to help people in other camps toward the truth if they are to experience the Fact of Love. To do that we must be willing to face the hard questions, like the one asked by 17 year old Mike from Hamilton Square, New Jersey, as quoted by the authors of “The Secret Life of Teens”. Mike’s prayer to God reads like this.
“Our world is dying. We need your help. All people are about anymore are themselves, and the people who want to live the correct, proper way have no idea where to turn for help. There are so many religions in the world.
“Followers of one particular belief think that the others are wrong and shun the people who hold those beliefs.
“How can you love the rapist, the murderers?
“I ask you and I get silence. I ask people, but everyone has a different answer. They all claim they’re right. Faith isn’t enough. So I just have one question to ask you.
“Where are you?
MIKE.”
Even though we know the answer is Jesus, it is not easy to get people to that conclusion. It takes a reinforced confidence in our own hearts that “God loved the world”. It takes a deep-seated faith and reassure in the truth that God IS and, in believing, I pour my heart out to him. In so doing, he will love His world through me, as I allow myself to be an instrument of God.
For those of us who have settled the issue and know the truth, and have experienced The Fact of Love we move on to
2. The Gift of Love
“He gave his Son, his one and only Son.” (3:16)
When Martin Luther was printing his translation of the Bible in Germany, pieces of the printed Scripture fell to the floor. A young girl picked one of them up and read the phrase of our text, “For God so loved the world that he gave”. The rest of the sentence was missing. That moment for her was a defining experience as the truth griped her. You see, she had been told so often that God was a Judge and One to be dreaded. She ran home with excitement in her heart, passing the note to tell her mother and talking endlessly of this wonderful discovery. Her mother read it and perplexed asked, “But what did He give?” The young girl was lost for a moment with a puzzled expression, not knowing the answer. But suddenly a thought came to her and her face lit up again as she said, “I don’t know; but if He loved us well enough to give us anything, we need not be afraid of Him.”
"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.”
One of the great mysteries of this verse is not only grappling with God’s love that is so great, so unsearchable, so vast, so immeasurable that he would give his only Son but also the mystery that Jesus was willing to be given.
John Stott, evangelist, preacher and scholar, gives us profound insight into the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son that lead to this verse, this point of history that would change the world forever. Stott speaks of several sources of Scripture that raise questions like:
Why didn’t God come himself?
Did Jesus only come because God required it of him?
(People read the following from power point: Isaiah 53:6, 10; 1 John 4:9-10; Romans 3:25; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Stott then answers the questions this way.
“We have no liberty to interpret them in such a way as to imply either that God compelled Jesus to do what he was unwilling to do himself, or that Jesus was an unwilling victim of God’s harsh justice.
“Both God and Christ were subjects, not objects, taking the initiative together to save sinners.
“The Father did not lay on the Son an ordeal he was reluctant to bear, nor did the Son extract from the Father a salvation he was reluctant to bestow.”
Maybe you are wondering why this is important to us. It is important for this reason. Not only can we read “For God so loved the world that he gave” we can also conclude “For Jesus so loved the world that he came”!
Do you remember the young man at the beginning of the sermon who wanted to write a poetic letter of love to his girl (no, it wasn’t me!)? God not only wrote the letter. He delivered the lover! His love was so profound that he gave the deepest, most intimate expression of his love – His only Son.
It has been said that George Buttrick had seen a painting in an Italian church. At first glance it appeared to be one of any number of typical paintings of the crucifixion. However, upon closer examination, he noticed a shadowy figure behind the cross. It was a representation of God and the nails and spear that pierced Jesus when straight through to the hands, feet and side of the Father.
They were in it together when Jesus came!
The Fact of Love declares that God loved. The Gift of Love recognizes that Father and Son had a partnership in the deliverance of this love – “God so loved that he gave”. “Jesus so loved that he came.”
Of course, this leads us to a final question. WHY? Why would God love us so much?
3. The Purpose of Love
And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. (SLIDE)
Love cannot live without loving. Love cannot selfishly enfold its gifts with no thought of sharing. Love’s first response is always with respect to the object of its affection and never for itself.
God could never be infinite love and deny humanity infinite grace. God, being God, could only do one thing – provide a way out, a way up, a way in – to his presence.
It is fascinating to explore the concept of ‘eternal’ life. In its deepest intentions, it speaks not only of length of life as suggested by Reverend Hasting but it speaks of “quality of life, a life which, by its quality, knows itself to be deathless.”
When, through the coming of Christ for the atonement of our sins, we experience “whole and lasting life” we actually live in such a way that everything has its focus in God. Every intention and desire is so channeled toward him that eternity has already begun and is not something that happens after death. I awaken in the morning to the knowledge that I am whole through the relationship I have with God and that relationship completes me and there is nothing more. The purpose is to be completely whole and in relationship with God, which was His design from the day He created us!
WRAP (SLIDE)
The Fact is – God loves you
The Gift is – Jesus came
The Purpose is – to be in right relationship with God.
