March 26, 2006
Fourth Sunday in the Season of Lent
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
John 3:14-21 (NRSVA)
Have you taken time lately to consider the “omni” qualities of God, omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence? Those “o-words” take us through a grand sweep of the nature of God. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present One the Bible calls God and Creator.
There’s nothing strength can do that He cannot do; there is nothing of which he is ignorant, past, present or future; there is nowhere to which you can ascend, descend or hide from His ever-watchful eye. He is God.
These characteristics of God are not an exhaustive list. We could add many more – faithfulness, truth, eternality, just, righteous, patient, longsuffering and much more.
This morning’s text leads us to one of Christianity’s greatest statements. John 3.16 has been called the greatest verse in the Bible. It is learned in Vacation Bible School, quoted often in sermons and even hung over guard rails in football stadiums during the Super Bowl. I even heard of a man who changed his name legally to John Threesixteen.
It is natural to connect God with the idea of love. Human beings have fallen far from that image. A grandmother was going shopping with her daughter and two little boys. The children had discovered a new word to use when upset with each other. As they started for the stores they suddenly they became angry with each other. "I hate you!" and "I hate you, too!" they yelled back and forth. "That’s not very nice," their mother said. "I’m certainly not going to take two little boys who hate each other to McDonald’s for lunch." Five-year-old Jamie quickly backed down. "I don’t really hate you, Billy." But Billy, with the clear logic of three years, responded, "I still hate you! I’m not hungry."
Elizabeth and I were coming home from a wonderful after-church meal some years ago. We had been to one of Jacksonville’s premier elite restaurants, The Piccadilly Cafeteria! I exited off the four-lane highway and as we approached the stoplight I could see an older brown Toyota already stopped at the light. There was a sign taped to the back window. As we came closer to the back of that car I could finally make out the crudely hand-lettered message, I HATE YOU!
I hate you; three words, so much a vitriolic picture of an embittered life. That sign made quite an impression on me that day. Human hatred has always been quite an enigma for me. However, an impression which has been stronger and longer-lasting was the message of John 3.16, the day God said to my heart I love you.
The Meaning of Love
As with any word, people can perceive a different meaning. If I ask you to come to my house for dinner, some of you would show up at noon, others around 6pm. It depends upon what time you’re used to connecting with the word “dinner”. If you eat “liver puddin” in Franklinville, you’ll eat “scrapple” up North. Same stuff – different word.
There are different meanings for the word “love” as well. There is romantic love, the kind between a man and woman. There is brotherly love we have for friends. We also have parental love, and love for our pets. There is a whole host of uses for love when it comes to appreciating things, food, sports. I “love” my job. My cousin drives a Mercedes…he says he loves it!
In the 60’s movie “Love Story” Ali McGraw turned to Ryan O’Neal and said, Love means never having to say you’re sorry. I call that “love drivel”. And The King [sic] Elvis wanted the ladies to Love Me Tender.
So, when it comes to talking about God, what kind of love are we talking about? Somehow Elvis and the rest fall short when we begin talking about the kind of love God shows us.
Here is a working definition of love (agape’ in Scripture):
God’s kind of love is an unselfishness which results in doing the best for another, even at the highest personal cost, without requiring or expecting payback.
Now, frankly, it is difficult for us humans to get our minds around that – to understand how God, or anyone else, could act in someone else’s best interest without expecting something in return.
This morning I would like for us to look at John 3:16…how God loved us with Agape’ love…in spite of His omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence.
Three STATEMENTS:
Statement #1 He loved us in spite of His Omniscience
Omniscience is all about knowing everything. A pastor visited an elderly couple for dinner. During dinner the husband always talked so sweetly to his wife. Each time, he addresses her, it’s “Sweetheart, pass the butter.” Or “Dear One will you get some more coffee? Thank you, love of my life.”
When the wife went to the kitchen, the Pastor said to the husband, “Bob, it’s wonderful that after more than fifty years of marriage you are still calling your wife by all those wonderful endearing names – love, sweetheart, punkin’. Said the husband, “Well, preacher, actually about ten years ago I forgot her name…can you help me here?”
The point here is that God knew us, and knows us; and he has forgotten absolutely nothing about us. He knows everything and yet he still went to the cross for us. That’s love! That’s agape’, the unselfish love.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8 (NASB)
The Lord knew everything about Russell when he was hanging on that cross. He knew all my sins. His omniscient knowledge covered all the wrong things I’ve done in my life, as well as the things I’ll mess up in the future. He even knows the sins I wanted to do, but haven’t had the time or energy; yet He considered me and died for me anyway.
The love of God is tied to the omniscience of God in that God knows all about everybody. He not only knows the bad stuff we’ve done, and the good stuff we’ve been commanded to do, but left undone; God also knows our trouble. He knows when the world has beaten us down and it feels like its time to give up. He knows when you’re at the breaking point. That’s why He went to the cross for you.
Statement #2 He loved us in spite of His Omnipotence
Omni-potent, all-powerful; He can do with strength whatever strength can do. How exactly is this tied to love? What relationship do love and power have? It has to do with the cross. I have heard many gospel songs over the years that state this very well. One has a phrase, He could have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set him free…but He died alone, for you and me.
The reality is that Jesus stayed on the cross, despite having all the power in the universe at his disposal. Had he chosen so He could have ended everything in the entire cosmos with a single spoken word. He has that power. But he loved you and me by dying for our sins.
Stuart Briscoe is a favorite preacher of mine. He shared an illustration of what that omnipotence did on the cross in love:
Years ago when I was a young banker, we used big leather ledgers where all accounts were entered by hand. I remember daydreaming about those ledgers and God’s ledgers in heaven. We are told those books will be opened. I imagined my name, David Stuart Briscoe, and God adding up the sum total of my indebtedness against him. I could never cancel the overwhelming indebtedness. In my mind’s eye, I saw God take his pen and transfer the sum total of my indebtedness to the account of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the account of the Lord Jesus, he wrote, "Transferred from the account of David Stuart Briscoe."
I thought God was finished. But then I saw him do something incredible. He added up the total righteousness of Christ and against it wrote these words, "Transferred to the account of David Stuart Briscoe." That’s love.
Statement #3
He loved us so we could join Him in His Omnipresence
Follow the love of Jesus in these few verses:
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4 - 7 (NASB)
Heirs! If Jesus is the son, and the Father makes us heirs, what does that make of our relationship to Jesus? Brother! The Lord wants us to join him as brothers in omnipresence. I know we cannot be everywhere at once in the flesh. (Sometimes when we’ve got folks in three hospitals in three cities I’d like to be able to do that…but it is impossible for me.) However, with the indwelling Spirit of God active in my life and yours, we are somehow joined with believers everywhere, bringing the ministry and love of the omnipresent Lord Jesus as salt and light around the globe.
Another verse: We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:16 (NASB)
A friend once sent me a story, originally told by Tony Campollo. ‘Joe was a drunk, miraculously converted in a street outreach mission. Before his conversion he’d gained a reputation as a derelict and dirty wino for whom there was no hope. But following his conversion to Christ, everything changed. Joe became the most caring person at the mission. He spent his days there, doing whatever needed to be done.
There was never anything he was asked to do that he considered beneath him. Whether it was cleaning up vomit left by some sick alcoholic, or scrubbing toilets after men had left them filthy, Joe did it all with a heart of gratitude. He could be counted on to feed any man who wandered in off the streets, undress and tuck him into bed when he was too out-of-it to take care of himself.
‘One evening, after the mission director delivered his evangelistic message to the usual crowd of sullen men with drooped heads, one of them looked up, came down to the altar and kneeled to pray, crying out for God to help him change. The repentant drunk kept shouting, “Oh God, make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe!” The director leaned over and said, “Son, wouldn’t it be better if you prayed ‘make me like Jesus?’”
‘After thinking about it for a few moments, the man looked up with an inquisitive expression and asked, “Is He like Joe?”’
Is He like Joe? Is He like Russell? Is He like any of us? The answer is yes, yes, multiplied times yes! The Lord Jesus Christ loved us with His dying and resurrection so that we would join him in His omnipresence around the world.
The omniscience of our Lord did not keep Him off the cross – Another song says He knew me, yet he loved me.
When He was on the cross, I was on His mind.
The omnipotence of our Lord wouldn’t let Him leave the cross – He possessed the power to take all my sins, and give me all His forgiveness and righteousness.
The omnipresence of my Lord Jesus is my joint inheritance…and yours.
Jesus is an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present and all-loving God. He offers eternal life. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not just for when we die. It is the opportunity to immediately experience the power of His death and resurrection, and to walk in the power of his coming by participating in His omnipresence as part of the body of Christ in this world. Jesus only waits for one word from you – “Yes, Lord”. You respond to this all-loving Lord Jesus, who died for you, by loving Him back. Will you do that today?
The whole point of Jesus’ telling the disciples all he did about the love of God was to make the point about the invitation of God…that we can be changed…to have God in our life. In the few verses preceding our text, Jesus had told Nicodemus he needed to be born from above.
The new birth is the cornerstone of resurrection theology.
• God didn’t come and die just to give us a symbol, or to show us what a nice and loving God he is.
• He didn’t come and be born in a manger to give us a warm, fuzzy reason to send Christmas cards and give presents to each other.
• He didn’t come to just be the best moral teacher the world has ever seen.
He came to bring the resurrection power that would allow us to be reborn. Jesus coming out of the tomb on Easter morning is all about new starts, new beginnings…rebirth!
The words of Jesus invite us to come to the light. The Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world. As we come to him in humble confession and repentance for our sins, there is something which the light does to us, in us…there is a change. Jesus called it being born again. He said it was necessary. He said “ye MUST be born again.”
But he left it on the table; our free will to choose or reject is the filter, or door by which we must accept or not. To do nothing is to reject his free offer of grace. It is to dry up the cleansing of baptism. It is to trample on the cross. It is to say, I need no Savior.
But, for those who will come, there is a transformation waiting. Ye must be born again – ye CAN be born again. Simply come to the cross, repenting of your sin, placing your faith in Jesus Christ…and, Ye WILL be born again!
