Things Worth Investing Your Life In

John 3 (2)

- Read John 3:14-21

It is 2020, a new decade, a new year full of new opportunities and new possibilities. Judging by what I’ve seen on Facebook and other social media, it doesn’t appear that much has changed for most people since Wednesday. Few have changed their priorities. Few have taken advantage of new opportunities. Few have changed their approach to life. Few have consciously thought about what things are worth investing their lives on.

We have just celebrated the Christmas season, remembering the birth and arrival of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He was only physically alive and physically present on the earth for a short 33 years. What did He invest His life in? What things did He say it was worth spending you time on?

Look there with me again please at verse 14.

- Read John 3:14-17

1. Invest your life in saving instead of condemning.

If you spend any time at all on social media, you know that there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions about a lot of things. Many are angry that others do not agree with them, or about the direction they see this country heading; and I’ll admit, there are things happening I do not agree with and things I am not happy about, but condemning people and dwelling on the negative all the time will neither save a person, nor influence them.

At the time Jesus lived on the earth there were crooked, unjust, and even evil politicians. If you doubt that, you have to look no further than at Herod, who had a bunch of babies murdered to protect his position as ruler over Israel.

You think abortion is bad? And I do. It is a vile, evil concoction of the Devil. But Herod was worse. He had babies taken out of their mothers’ arms and killed, just so he could keep his political position.

Sexual immorality, drunkenness, covetousness, and blatant paganism was rampant in Jesus’ day, and yet the Bible tells us in John 3:17 that God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.

Let there be no doubt, there will come a day when Jesus will condemn. There will come a day when Jesus judges.

> Acts 17:31 . . . because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

God will have His Son Jesus Christ judge the world.

> 2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

> Matthew 25:31-34 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

> Matthew 25:41 “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels! 46 “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

There will come a time when Jesus will return and when Jesus, the Perfect and Holy will judge. But now is not the time. For now He is waiting and working through HIs followers, not willing that any should perish but wanting all to have eternal life.

In Luke 4, we have an account of the sermon Jesus preached in His home church in Nazareth. Beginning in verse 16 we read, “He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

All around us are people who are spiritually blind. All around us are people who are captives to one addiction or another, and the Lord has given us the assignment to help them.