God Loves Them To
Jn 3:16-21
INTRO: A. Who has dressed up in school colors, painted face, or yelled at a sporting event. Is it exciting listening to announcer call the game, shouts through the microphone, ‘He shoots He Scores!’ or “10, 5, Touchdown!” or “Its over the fence! Homerun!” We get passionate about our sports & teams
1. Do we get that excited over the lost being Saved? Lu 15:10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
a. We can say there is Passion in heaven
2. We as a people are for freedom, paying billions of $$ &
American blood & lives to bring freedom to Afghanistan & Iraq
a. How much are we willing to pay for people’s spiritual
freedom?
3. We cry & pray for people to be healthy & to live longer in
this old sinful wicked world?
a. But what are our prayers like for their spiritual health &
their eternal life?
4. We get upset with the news that a friend or neighbor might
move away
a. But are we grieved at the thought of them stepping into
eternity un prepared?
5. Most Christians know the facts of heaven & hell, eternity to
be ready for. We desire to see people saved
a. But Our love & passion isn’t like God’s
b. We don’t see the fields as Jesus saw the fields Joh 4:35 Say not ye, There are yet four months, and [then] cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
6. As Christians we to develop a heart of Love & a passion for
what God Loves & has a passion for
**Michael Jordan contract. Normally Professional athletes can not play the sport but when the team owner says. No other game any other time. But MJ refused to sign. He had a new clause. “The love of game clause” He had such a passion for the game. He wasn’t going to be told when & where he could & could not play it. It wasn’t just about money of MJ. He had a passion for the game of basketball. Mchenery’s Stories #806
a. That is what we as Christians need to develop a love for
Jesus and those Jesus loves that can’t be stopped
b. It isn’t the finer things in life, arts & music or even a great
worship experience as much as it pleases Him
c. God’s love & passion is the redemption of man
I. People Matter to God v16
A. Is Jn 3:16 just a memory verse to us
1. Does that tell you & me, God love me? Or more?
2. Who does God Love? The world, the people of the world
a. Red & yellow, black & white, precious in His sight
3. Religious & non religious, Good & bad church & non-church
4. When in the bible was God Pleased, Happy?
a. Creation saw it was good
b. Jesus’ Birth Singing in Heaven glorious time
c. When we exercise faith, without faith it is impossible to please
Him
5. Is God pleased, happy at the punishment of the lost?
**Jewish tradition of the defeat of the Egyptians at Red Sea, Angels started to celebrate & God stopped them. “My creatures are drowning, and you are praising me?”
Eze 33:11 Say unto them, [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
6. Jn 3:16 reminds us of God’s GREAT LOVE
a. Unlimited, Unconditional Love
2 Pt 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
B. God sent…
1. Thousands of parents sent their son or daughter off to war
a. They loved their child as much as any human could love
1. Many probably tried to talk their child out of going, Yet they went
b. Yet they have returned in coffins or are buried on a foreign
Land
c. We are of Imperfect Love
2. The Love of the Father & the Son is perfect, Perfect in unity
& agreement
a. He sent His one & only unique Son from His throne to a
world of sin & Iniquity
b. To be born not in a palace but a barn
c. To a kingdom that didn’t want him
d. To a People who didn’t understand Him & eventually
would kill him
3. God sent His Son from His Throne to the human squalor
a. Not just to live here, not just to be a teacher
b. But to pay the price for our sin
B. Jesus came TO DIE on a old Rugged Cross
1. When we send that son or daughter off to war, we know
there is a possibility of death but a hope of survival
2. When Jesus was sent, He came as a lamb to the slaughter
a. No HOPE, He was going to die, no chance of survival
1. His destiny was to suffer, to bleed to die
3. The Bloody death of Christ was necessary for God’s Love to
expressed to the fullest extent
a. It is one thing to say I love you, it’s another thing to prove it
Ro 5:6-8 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
b. Calvary proved beyond any doubt God’s great love
4. I remind you the scourge, the abuse, the shame of the cross
is not all that Jesus was sent to experience
a. Jesus experience what it is to be forsaken of God in hell
Ac 2:27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
5. God must really love the lost, to send Jesus to go through all of
that so as neither we nor any other person would taste hell for 1 second
6. The lost neighbor, friend, fellow-worker, class mate, family
member matters greatly to God
a. So much so, He sent His only begotten Son
b. How much do they matter to you?
II. People are Eternally Lost
A. v17-21 The reality is that people are lost & condemned
Ro 3:10 & 23 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: ….. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
1Jo 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1. All those good people, you know, those loved ones you love &
those community minded individuals as good as they are,
a. Are not good enough
2. The disease condemns each to eternity separated from God
a. We see the symptoms in our sins of choice
1. Choose to walk in darkness rather than the light of God
Ga 5:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
3. Each person you see each day is lost, eternally condemned
to a place called hell
a. Where they will exist, suffer in eternal punishment for ever
B. To be lost is to be lost from God’s provisions & presence
1. God created man to fellowship with Him for ever
a. But because of sin, we He looses our fellowship & we
loose His presence & blessings
2. To be lost is to be destined to hell & there is Nothing MAN
Can do to escape that fate 2Pt 2:4-6
Eph 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
3. Do you understand, can you comprehend the predicament
your neighbors are in?
a. Do you see the destiny of that friend?
1. Are you truly aware your classmates eternal situation?
2. Do you realize Hell is real & real people are there & will go there.
3. There are People alive today on earth will be in hell tonight
4. Only one answer, One remedy
a. Religion is NOT the cure, Goodness isn’t good enough
b. Sincerity will only get a person in hell sincerely wrong
c. There are NOT many ways to Heaven
1. Jesus didn’t have to die if there was another route to God
2. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
Mt 26:39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt].
3. Hear that? “If it be possible” Jesus would not experience all He did
if it was possible for us to be saved by some other means
III. People Need Jesus (more than anything)
A. Jesus is the ONLY Hope. No other way
Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Ac 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
1Pt 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Ti 1:15 This [is] a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
1. OK, Man is hopelessly lost, condemned hell bound
a. No religion, good works or human effort to escape Hell
2. The Only opportunity to not go to hell & to go to Heaven
a. Is through faith in Jesus, the Work He did on Calvary’s Cross
3. Therefore, since Christ has paid for all sin by suffering,
shedding His blood & experiencing being forsaken of God
a. He would not have done that if there existed another way
b. So people will die & step into eternity not because of
salvation isn’t available
1. But because they have not believed on that Savior
4. But here is the catch… they….
B. Need somebody to Go. Tell them That God loves them to..
Rom 10:13-15 “For "Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" NLT
*Heard a woman missionary give her testimony a few years ago at a missionary commissioning this Beautiful wife & mother of 3. American fair skinned. Moved to Africa with her husband and to a poor village & lived in huts, & cooked on fires like all the rest. It was that willingness to come among them, to live like them that got their attention & allowed them to share the gospel to great success.
1. I don’t know of that being needed here.
a. All anybody has to go, is across the street or down the road
into the neighborhoods & spend a few minutes to share
b. Not a major life-style change, not a great sacrifice
c. Just a Love for the Lost like Jesus
