The Most Famous Verse in the Bible

0:06It's probably not going to be hard to find the verse that we're preaching on today. Sometimes when I'm preaching on a passage, I need to have a prolonged intro to give people time to find the book or the passage or the section. But some of you may be even thinking, I don't even know that I need to open my Bible this morning, but I hope you will nonetheless.

0:26The verse is this: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Some of you were saying that with me, maybe in a different translation. Maybe you had some thees and thous in there if you learned the King James Version or some other version. But that, that's one of, if not the most familiar/famous verses in the entirety of the Bible. There's an old hymn called The Love of God.

0:55It begins this way: The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell. The guilty pair bowed down with care. God gave his Son to win. His erring child he reconciled and pardoned.

1:18From his sin. O love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forevermore endure, the saints' and angels' song. The love of God in that hymn is inspired by the love of God in John 3:16. There's a reason why this is the most famous verse in the Bible. There's a reason why if you take your In-N-Out cups and hopefully after they're empty you turn it upside down you will see John 3:16 written on the bottom of your In-N-Out cups.

1:52There's a reason why it's printed on the side of one of the Monster Jam trucks, Barbarian. The Monster Jam was just recently over at Texas Stadium. I don't know if Barbarian was there or— Texas Stadium, what is it called now? AT&T Stadium. Sorry, that's the old Cowboys fan in me back when they used to be good.

2:11It's one of the titles of Keith Urban's song, right? Keith Urban is this country musician and he's got a song that's called John Cougar, John Deere, and John 3:16.

2:21I'm sure that's what the Apostle John had in mind as he was recording these things. It's appeared in comic strips. Charles Schulz included it in the iconic Peanuts comic strip. It's even been emblazoned on the eye black of professional athletes, perhaps most famously Tim Tebow's.

2:39The verse itself marks a transition in John chapter 3. In fact, in the ESV, you'll notice at verse 16 that the quotation marks are there as though that this is the continuation of Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus. However, I'm going to suggest that that's not actually the case. I believe that this is where John the Apostle begins to provide commentary on Jesus' interaction with Nicodemus. And if you'll note, a lot of your Bibles, if you've got an ESV, you'll probably have a footnote there that says some translations believe that the quotation ends at verse 15, and John picks up in verse 16.

3:17Listen, either way, this is not a tier 1 issue. Either way, this does not change the content. It does not change the purpose. This is still God's Word, whether this is John the Apostle commentating or whether this is Jesus making these statements, which, by the way, is one reason why the red-letter Bibles are troublesome, because in the Greek manuscripts, guess what is not there in the Greek manuscripts? Quotation marks.

3:40Also, red letters. And so you can't definitively argue one way or the other. It's going to be an interpretive decision no matter what, whether we say that this is John speaking here, that this is Jesus continuing to speak. So if you have a red-letter Bible, that's fine. But the red letters are not more important than the black letters.

3:56All of it, we believe every single word is fully inspired by God. This is God's Word from beginning to end. And so whether this is John's commentary, as I believe it is, or whether this is Jesus continuing to talk to Nicodemus, the point is he's expounding upon this love, this concept of love. Jesus has just finished talking to Nicodemus about how if you want to be born again, you need to be born from the— from, from above, basically born from the water and the Spirit, right? You need this supernatural birth to take place.

4:26You need new life, Nicodemus. And the implied question there is, how is that possible? And Jesus answered in verses 14 through 15 by saying, as Moses lifted up the serpent on the, the pole So must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever would look to him would, would have eternal life, would live. Looking back to that scene in the Old Testament when Moses had to do that because the fiery serpents were biting the Israelites and they were dying and they had to look to the serpent to live. Jesus said, I'm going to be lifted up.

4:54That's pointing to the cross. And if you look to me, you will live. Now John gives us a glimpse into what motivated such a provision from the Father. What would cause the Father to lift His Son up so that we might live? And the answer is love did it.

5:12Love did it. That's how this begins. For God so loved the world. It all begins with the love of the Father. The Greek word there is agape.

5:22It's agapao. It's the verb form there. It's a love that is a fatherly love. It's the purest sense of love that we find in the Scripture. For God so loved the world.

5:35Listen, everything that follows in John 3:16, everything that follows is only true because God loved us. Without the love of God, there is no giving of the Son. There is nothing and no one for us to believe in, and there is no eternal life to be had. The love of God begins everything. And the reality is He did love us, and so we do have that hope.

6:02We do have Jesus. We do have hope to believe in Christ and thus have eternal life. And now we do have John 3:16 in country songs and on the bottom of In-N-Out cups. Well, in our remaining time together, though this is a familiar path, we've walked this path before, I trust you've heard sermons on this before, you've read this verse before, it's a familiar path, but I hope as we walk this path together this morning that we can turn over some rocks. To discover and learn a little bit more about this love and to find out why you've never really known love until you've known the love of the Father.

6:36This is it. This is the paradigm. This is the standard. This is the love unlike any other love that the world or you and I have ever known. John 3:16, for God so loved the world.

6:49We begin with the question, who? Okay, God loved, but who did God love? And the answer is, well, the world. But what did John mean by world? The word there in the Greek is cosmos, which is where we get our English word cosmos and cosmology.

7:05It's the idea of the world. It can mean that the physical world, we find that in John 1:9. In John 1:9, the same word is used there to talk about how Jesus came into the world. Now that's talking about physical creation at that point. Okay, so it can mean that, or it can mean, for example, in 1 John 2:15-17, the world's system, the system of opposition against God, where John, the same author who wrote our gospel, would write in 1 John 2:15, do not love the world or the things in the world, because the things of the world— and then he lists there the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life— not from God, but from the world.

7:42Okay, so world can also mean the world's system of opposition against God. Or third, it can mean humanity, humankind, lost humanity at that. It's that third meaning that we're talking about here in John 3:16. This is not talking about how God loved the physical planet, and it's certainly not talking about how God loved that which John told us not to love, which is the opposition to him. But rather, this is John saying that God so loved this place, the world that you and I inhabit, Us, humanity, people.

8:15He set his affection on us.

8:19John 1:10 says, he was in the world. Okay, that's talking about the physical world. And the world was made through him. Again, the physical world. Yet, now we switch, the world did not know him.

8:30There he's talking about humanity. That Jesus came into the world, but the world did not know him. God so loved this world. It's an unreal statement, simple yet profound to a depth that we'll never comprehend. For God so loved the world.

8:49Now, what did we do to merit that love? Nothing. In fact, the profoundness and the amazing thing about the love of God is that he loved us as we were unlovable and unlovely. That's what Romans 5 lays it out for us. We were weak, ungodly, sinful enemies of God when he showed his love for us by sending Christ for us.

9:14But you know what? It goes back even further than that. It goes all the way back to Ephesians chapter 1. It goes all the way back to the before the foundations of the earth. Ephesians 1, beginning in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

9:33Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Note this, in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. See, this is it, the love of the Father that we're looking at, as we're going to find out, was shown in giving us his Son, and that was initiated for us in eternity past. When did God begin loving you? He began loving you before the foundation of the world.

10:06He began loving you before you were a thought. He began loving you when in love he predestined you, if you are in Christ, for adoption as his child. We get to be a part of this love. When we ask the question, who did God love? For God so loved the world.

10:23Who's the world? The first thing that we need to start with is that involves you and me this morning. If you're in Christ this morning, you've been made a recipient of this love. If you're not in Christ this morning, this love is available to you this morning. But for those of us who are, I want us to think about this.

10:38And I want us to realize this love that God has shown us is something that should always amaze us, always spark gratitude in us. It should be something, point number 1, that we never get over. Never get over the fact that God loved you. Never get over the fact that God loved you. Now in the text, this is a love in the verb form here that's talking about a moment in time love, and that's referring to the cross, the giving of Christ here.

11:05But the reality is that God's love is not just a singular moment in time, but it continues on. God has loved you in giving Christ, and that love has ongoing effects that you and I still get to enjoy and experience today. There's a man by the name of Peter Mutabazi, Mutabazi, and I'm sure I'm butchering his last name. Peter and I went to college together. And Peter was a guy that I lost touch with until the magic of Instagram brought us together again.

11:29It was one of those suggested people to follow. So I was like, oh yeah, I remember Peter. So I started following Peter. Peter's a single guy and he was born in Africa and he now lives here, went to college at Masters with me while I was there. And he has since then become a foster parent.

11:47And he is a single man, follower of Jesus, has fostered over 32 kids. And he's adopted now 3, and he's working on adopting more. And you see Peter's love for these kids and you think, man, that's amazing that he would have such a compassion for them. But here's the background of Peter's story. See, Peter grew up and was expected to die at age 2.

12:11He was not supposed to live past age 2. He grew up and lived as he was being raised in an abusive home with an abusive dad. At the age of 10, imagine this, at the age of 10, he ran away from home because he thought to himself, I'd rather die at the hand of strangers than die at the hand of my dad.

12:29He survived from there and at the age of 15, having to steal and take from people in order to feed himself, he got caught stealing from a particular man there in Africa as he was trying to get food to feed himself. And he got caught stealing and he expected, as was always the case previous, to be punished for that. But this man, rather than punishing Peter, began to talk with Peter and ask him questions. Where are you staying? What is your story?

12:55What's your background? This man demonstrated an unmerited love for Peter that saw Peter eventually get to go to school and finish out his education. And then this man made it possible for him to come to the United States and go to college. And he totally transformed Peter's life.

13:11Peter not have never— words. Hold on, here they come. Okay. Peter never got over that. He never got over that.

13:22And that's why he lives the life that he does today, because he's mindful of the love that he was shown. And so for you and I, church, we have a love that's even greater than that, that we've been shown. And yet it may be harder for us to wrap our minds around that because for most of us, we're comfortable. Most of us live in a home that we enjoy, that, that is, is probably not paid for yet, maybe it is, but, but you've got a job that's paying for that, you've got your family, you've got a nice car, you were able to get here, it was cold this morning, your car had heat so you turned heat on. See, we, we live outside of the realm of desperation so sometimes we forget just how great the love that we've been shown really truly is.

14:02And yet that love is far greater than what Peter was shown because that love that we've been shown by God didn't just transform our temporal life but our eternal life.

14:13See, God in love has plucked you out from following the prince of the course of this world, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2. He's delivered you from following the prince of the power of the air.

14:27He's given you a new identity as no longer a child of wrath but now a child of God. He's removed your heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh. He's put his Spirit within you. He has called you. He has sealed you.

14:45He has forgiven you. He has redeemed you. He has reconciled you. He has washed you. Why?

14:58Where does that all come from? It's all connected and rooted in his love for you. His love that he set on you when you were still unlovable.

15:10The question I have for you this morning is, has your life been transformed by that? Peter's whole purpose in life is radically transformed because of what this man did for him. Has your life been radically transformed because of what God has done for you and how much he's loved you? Does it stir gratitude in your heart on a regular basis? To think, man, God, you loved me that much when I was a weak, ungodly, sinful enemy of yours.

15:33I was not lovable and you loved me in spite of that. It's like King David when David said, what is man that you are mindful of him? And David didn't even know anything about the cross. We sit here this morning knowing the backside of the cross and we think to ourselves, God, how could you love us this much?

15:54Psalm 139. O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down, when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and you're acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

16:11You hem me in behind and before you lay your hand upon me. That's the love of the Father in your life.

16:21How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he should give his only Son to make a wretch his treasure. The sheer magnitude of this. The God of creation specifically intentionally loved you. Like, here's the thing, y'all, we're gonna hammer on the glory of God. And that's the reality in all of this, right?

16:48That's the passage in Ephesians that we have been loved by him to the praise of his glorious grace. So all of this, the fact that the Father loved you is, is ultimately for the glory of God. And yet I don't want to undersell the fact that he loved you, you, your name written in the book of life by the Lord of all creation. By the God of the universe, thought about you.

17:17You don't even get that from the mayor of the city you live in, your favorite political candidate. You're a number. You're a constituent. To God, you are his son and his daughter. He loves you and knows you by name to the level of Psalm 139.

17:37Does that move you this morning?

17:41And it's not Him saying, hey, come to Me and do all these things for Me and then maybe I'll love you. He's saying, no, I'm going to love you first. And this is how much I'm going to love you. I'm going to give My Son for you. And this is where we begin to see that the gratitude that we feel is meant to produce something else in us, and that is this whole idea of, man, I want to respond to that love that God has given to me.

18:05I want to do something with that love that God has given to me. Yeah, I never want to get over it, but man, I want to love other people in response. The world knows something about this, right? There's philanthropical organizations that are out there that will be loving towards people and generous towards people until what? Well, until the coffers dry up.

18:26Philanthropy is only as good as the amount of donations in the bank, right? This love that God has given us, this love that God has provided for us, I mean, it transforms us and fills us up so much that we can love radically in response because of the amazing love with which we've been loved. And that's where we're going to go next. Look at the second part. For God so loved the world that what?

18:48That he gave his only Son. We talked about the who. This is the how. This is the how. Okay.

18:55For God so loved. That word so there, it can refer to the intensity. Man, God so loved. This is how amazing, how great, how big his love is. Or it can also refer to the manner in which he loved.

19:10That's why some translations will say, for this is how God loved the world. In other words, it's showing what did that love look like? How did God love us? Okay. He loved us.

19:19That's great. But how did he love us?

19:24We sang about it. How great the pain of searing loss. The Father turns his face away as wounds which mar the chosen one bring many sons to glory. John put it this way, he gave his only Son. He gave.

19:44Simple, yet again, incredibly profound. The word gave there, it's the word that was often used for bringing your offering to the temple. He's— you're giving, you're sacrificing, you're presenting this. It was a costly offering, right? It was also used when somebody would be sent on a mission to accomplish a goal for the good of another person.

20:04That person was dispatched, was given towards accomplishing a goal that would benefit someone else. Here, God gave his only Son. If you grew up with the older translations, you may have been quoting this and said, he gave his only begotten Son. What are we talking about there? What does this mean?

20:22His only Son? Didn't you just say that I've been loved now and I'm an adopted son and you're an adopted daughter? Is it— how do we understand this? Why is it the only Son? Well, what he's talking about here is not only in quantity, but only in uniqueness.

20:37That's what the word monogenes there in the Greek is really after and what it really means there. It's stressing the unique identity of Jesus as the Son of God in a Trinitarian perspective. That He is the only eternally begotten Son of God, that He has always been the Son of God, always lived within the context of the Trinity as the Son of God. And God the Father gave that Son, that unique Son for us. This is the how.

21:05But again, it was a sacrificial giving. Think back to Genesis chapter 22, because the Jewish mind reading this, they would have read, give your only son, and their mind would have gone to Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22 has a story. You remember Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham, and I am one of them and so are you, so let's all praise the Lord. Right hand, left hand.

21:26Next week we'll sing that one for our closer. Pastor Rod's like, don't tempt me. I'll do it, man. I will do it. No, but Father Abraham, before he had many sons, he had one son of the promise, and who was that?

21:38Isaac, right? And you remember God showed up to Abraham and said, Abraham, I want you to do something for me. I want you to offer your son, your only son.

21:53That's verse 2. Verse 3 in Genesis chapter 22 says, the next morning Abraham got up and took his son and went up to the mountain.

22:02That's probably the loudest white space in all of the Bible; the space between verses 2 and verse 3.

22:11What was that night like for Abraham? The conversation with Sarah, wrestling with God in that moment overnight, losing sleep, thinking to himself, man, God, you promised that this was the son of the promise. I don't want— why? Why?

22:30And what does he hear in response? Silence.

22:36Abraham gets up and he takes Isaac and he goes up the mountain and you know the rest of the story, or maybe you don't. Well, Abraham takes Isaac up there and he places him on the altar, gets to this point, he's bound his son. His son is saying, Father, I've got the wood and where's the lamb for the offering? And Abraham, probably through tears, is choking back saying, God will provide. And he takes Isaac and he lays him on the altar.

22:54And at some point the light bulb's going on for Isaac. And Abraham takes the knife and raises it up over his only son, the son of the promise. And he's got the knife in the hand. And then God says to Abraham, stop.

23:13Stop. The father didn't stop with his son.

23:19And the angst that we picture Abraham feeling, why do we think it would be any easier for the father with the Son, Jesus?

23:30And maybe we're tempted to say, well, because he knew the outcome. True. Yeah, God the Father knew that the tomb was going to be empty 3 days later, but do you think that made it any easier for him to pour out his wrath upon his Son?

23:45I don't.

23:48Think about a trial that you've gone through, maybe the worst trial you've ever gone through, that now you're on the backside of it. And maybe you look back at that trial and you can see through that trial, man, I I see how God was using that for my good. I see what God was doing in the midst of that trial. I now know the outcome of it. Now I look back on it and I see the good that came out of that.

24:09Let me ask you a question. Would you want to go back and re-experience it though?

24:14My guess is no. Even knowing what God was doing, you would still not want to go back through that, would you?

24:22The Father's love in giving his Son for us That white space between chapter— verse 2 and verse 3 in chapter 22 of Genesis, man, that angst that Abraham must have felt.

24:35The Father, it was different for him because he knew what he was doing the whole time.

24:40But the hurt and the pain of pouring out his wrath on his son, his guiltless son, for us. Why? Because he loved us.

24:54Behold the man upon the cross, my sin upon his shoulders. Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. Okay. Why though?

25:08Why? The world will look at this and sometimes, and it's been lobbed out there. Well, this is cosmic child abuse is what this is. Wrong. Because the Son didn't go unwillingly, by the way.

25:20The Son himself would say, the Son of Man came not to, or came to give his life as a ransom for many. So the Father gave the Son, but the Son also gave his life willingly. Okay, so this is not cosmic child abuse. This is a participation of the Son in the plan of the Father. But why?

25:35Why this? Because it was absolutely necessary. There was no other way for you and me to be saved. I talked about it earlier. God loved us when we were unlovable.

25:43The only way for the unlovable to become the lovely in God's plan is through the cross. It's what we refer to this way. Penal substitutionary atonement. That means that Jesus died on the cross in your place. Penal, the punishment that you were due and I was due for our sins, Jesus suffered that for us.

26:03He was our substitute on the cross. It's the only way the Father can love us. That's the only way that you and I become lovely to the Father is through the death of his Son for us. There's no other way. We can't be good enough.

26:16We can't merit it. We can't earn it. We have to have a substitute, and that was Jesus. We've read about it recently in the Daily Bible Reading in Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53, verses 4 through 6, Surely He has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken and smitten by God and afflicted.

26:39In other words, we didn't understand Verse 5, but he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

27:03This love of God is greater far than tongue or pen could ever tell.

27:08As we think about the manner in which God loved us and the great measure of the sacrifice involved therein, it's helpful and right for us to consider that this should be the target for you and I now on the backside. You've been saved at the cross. Okay, what does John 3:16 mean for us now? We've been saved, we've come to know that Jesus is our Savior, we've trusted in him as our penal substitute for us on the cross, that all of God's wrath has been satisfied or atoned for by Him through His death for us. Now, what good is John 3:16 other than to be in the titles of country songs and the bottom of In-N-Out cups?

27:41Well, it's this: it reminds us of the paradigm for you and I now moving forward. If God has loved you that much and He's loved me that much, what's our response but to go out and seek to love others that much ourselves? Point number 2 this morning is this: love others like God's loved you.

28:03You just sang it. Teach me how to love like you have loved me.

28:12Back to Peter, that's what he's done so well. His life was transformed by the love of a stranger when he had no parents, when he had no one to care for him. And what has Peter done? He said, I'm going to pay this forward. I'm going to make my whole life about doing the same.

28:29Christian, that's the right response for us today to the gospel and living it out. The implications for John 3:16 are eternal, but they're also today for us. This love that God has shown for us, this immeasurable love, this love that we should never get over, this love that caused him to give his only Son for you and me in our— the payment that we could never pay, that love should now create in us a desire to go out and love others that way. You say, is that there? Yeah, let me direct you to another part of the Gospels, Luke chapter 10.

28:59In Luke chapter 10, you've got a situation here where Jesus is approached by an expert in the law, somebody who is a Jewish leader of the day, and he comes up to him and he says, teacher, what's the greatest commandment? And Jesus says, you'll love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. This guy says, who's my neighbor? You guys remember this story?

29:23Jesus says, I'm glad you asked that question. Let me tell you a story. By the way, this is the PJ standard version that I'm giving you right now. Not inspired at all, just summarized. So he begins to tell the story.

29:36He says there was a man that was coming down from Jerusalem and he had been there presumably to worship and now he's going home. And this was a Jewish man and he happened to fall among robbers along the way and the road was dangerous at that time. He was beaten and mugged and bloodied and left for dead. And here comes a priest down the road, and you expect, okay, he's going to certainly help this man. And they know he goes around the other side.

29:58He doesn't want to defile himself with this one that was beaten and bloodied and clearly in need. And then here comes a Levite. Well, maybe he'll help. And no, he's going to go around the other way too. He doesn't want to risk the danger.

30:08Maybe they're still lurking around. He doesn't want to risk his life. Here comes a Samaritan. Now, the background there is important because the Jews and Samaritans hated each other. And so as soon as Jesus said, here comes a Samaritan, his audience would have thought, no way will this guy love this Jew who's on the side of the road.

30:26Wrong. The Samaritan is the one that stops, helps the man, binds up his wounds, anoints him with oil for the cleansing element there, puts him on his donkey, gives up his ride, takes him to an inn, pays the innkeeper to continue to care for his needs and says, hey, when I come back, I'll pay you whatever other costs you incur. Jesus, at the end of the story, says, who was the neighbor?

30:49Through gritted teeth, the Jewish people are forced to say, the Samaritan, right? Who's the Samaritan in that story? When you've read that story, who have you thought the Samaritan to be? We want to think it's us, don't we? We want to think, well, I pulled over to the side of the road to help somebody change a tire once.

31:07I'm the Good Samaritan. I hope your aim is to be the Good Samaritan, but here's the deal. The whole point of Jesus' story is this love is so unbelievable. No one would ever do this. The standard that Jesus is talking about here, everybody's like, that's crazy.

31:23No one would love like that. And Jesus' point is, yes, exactly. You get it. Because why? Because the Good Samaritan is Jesus in this parable, but he's the model.

31:35He's the paradigm. He's telling us that's how we need to love other people because why? Because that's the way that you've been loved by God. What we see in the parable of the Good Samaritan is but a shadow of what we see in the cross. We were the bloodied one.

31:50We were the ones on the side of the road. We were the ones that couldn't do anything for ourselves. And Jesus is the one that in unmerited favor, when we were unlovable, had no reason to stop and love us, loved us anyways through the cross. That should cause us to want to go out and say, I want to love other people that way. In fact, John says this in 1 John 3:17-18.

32:141 John 3:17 says, but if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? In other words, what John is saying there is, man, if you don't love other people, then how can you say you've experienced God's love in your life?

32:37For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. Look, when, when we've realized that, it transforms our lives. Just like Peter said, man, I'm done. I've got to pay this forward. I've got to love other people the way that I was loved.

32:51That should be our desire. And so the question that I have for you this morning is, can someone tell from looking at your life that you have been so greatly loved by the Father? Do they see this love being paid forward in your life? Do they see you loving others as you've been loved?

33:08Some different ways to do that. What is love? You're singing the lyric, I know you are in your, in your mind. It's okay. That's why I put that up there.

33:17How about this? Serving the body of Christ is love, right? I've been loved. So I want to sacrificially love other people here in the church. I want to love the body by serving the body.

33:26Connecting in community is love. Man, I want to invest in other people in relationship. I want to be involved with my brothers and sisters in Christ and know people and be known by people. That is an expression of our love for other people. If you want to begin to sacrificially love other people, get involved in a community group.

33:45You will undeniably be presented with opportunities to serve and love people. People were loving me from my community group this week. My wife is out of town. She's in California. Can't wait for her to get back.

33:54But I've had people in my community group bring me meals this week, which was such a huge blessing because I have 5 kids and I don't know what to do with them sometimes. So that was an awesome blessing to be able to heat up food on the stove for my family and feed them. And it was delicious too. No, but you will be given opportunities to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice, right? To spur one another on.

34:15That's a way that we love one another because we've been loved by Christ. To say, I care about your Christlikeness. I want to spur you on towards love and good deeds, to do what I just said. I mean, weep with those who weep. Enter into life with other believers.

34:31Feel their burdens, feel their pain, but also their joys. Rejoice with those who rejoice. This is a way that we love one another in the church because of the love that we've received. Admonishing the idle. In fact, this is one verse.

34:46Encouraging the faint-hearted and being patient with everyone. That's a way that we show love for one another. It's the idea there, by the way, admonishing the idle. It's the idea of the— to counsel them. It's where we get the idea of biblical counseling here.

35:04Admonishing people, encouraging people, showing patience with everyone, forgiving as you've been forgiven.

35:12This is a big one, right? How many times in the counseling office have I sat there with a husband and wife who refuse to forgive each other and yet they say, yeah, no, I'm a Christian.

35:21Do you know how much you've been forgiven? Remember the woman of ill repute, the prostitute who was wiping the feet of Jesus with her hair and the Pharisee was saying, man, if this guy knew what type of woman this was, he wouldn't let her do this. And Jesus' response is amazing. He says, She loves much because she's been forgiven much.

35:43Again, there's a connection here, guys, between understanding how much God has loved us and then us going out and loving others in response.

35:56Love truly experienced is love that exudes. It's love that shows.

36:03That can't be contained.

36:081 John 4, let me go back here again. I don't think there's any accident that John wrote John 3:16, and then in 1 John there's so much about God's love in there as well. But in 1 John chapter 4, verses 7 through 11, it says, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son so that we might live through him.

36:37There's John 3:16 repeated for us in 1 John. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. In other words, to satisfy God's wrath against our sins. That's what we're talking about here in point 2. Okay?

36:53So what's John's conclusion? If God so loved us, what? We also ought to love one another. Love one another. So Christian, you're sitting here in the room going, really, another sermon on John 3:16?

37:07I know this. I'm saved. What does John 3:16 have to say to me this morning? Well, here's one of the rocks on the path that we're turning over. It has to say, are we loving like God has loved us?

37:18Are we showing that love to other people? Because that's the natural outcome. That's the natural outcome. The who? God has loved the world.

37:25The how? By giving his only Son. Why? Well, we've already been dancing all around it, so let's just make it plain. End of the verse.

37:34So that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Remember, this is on the heels of Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus about needing to be born again. How? How is that possible?

37:50How can I have this new life that you're talking about? Well, I'm glad you asked. God, see, has loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

38:11Whoever believes— who's going to believe in Jesus? Well, the invitation is out there to everyone. That's why God so loved the world. This is not all without exception, but all without distinction. In other words, we don't believe the world is going to all be saved.

38:30That's called universalism. We believe in an exclusive gospel; that is, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through him. But the invitation is to everyone. Whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. And so if you're here this morning and you have not yet made that decision, the offer is there this morning.

38:50God is beckoning you this morning, even by putting you here in the way of His Word this morning, to say, come to Me. Will you believe in Me? I've loved you so much that I gave My Son for you so that you would, if you believe in Me, not perish but have eternal life. Life, believe. But even that word, right?

39:10Again, the simplicity of John 3:16 betrays the depth of what is really being conveyed here. Believe, what does it mean to believe in him?

39:232 things, one that it's not, one that it is. One of the things that it's not is this antinomianism, that is this anti-law idea, or this easy-believism.

39:36And this is the idea that says one can simply believe in the facts of the gospel and be saved, that there doesn't need to be any sort of fruit borne in their life, that if they just simply believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. I believe in Jesus. I believe that He died on the cross. Therefore, I'm saved. I'm going to counter that with what James said.

40:01James is talking about the oneness of God, but I think it applies here as well. James said, you believe that God is one, congratulations, even the demons believe that and shudder.

40:13So what differentiates your belief, because the demons believe that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, they were present and witnesses to that. What separates your faith from the demons' faith? And that's where this is a greater exercise than simply the intellect. Somebody has said the greatest distance in all of humanity is the 18 inches between the mind and the heart, because that's where we have to get to when we're talking about the belief that saves. See, the belief that does save is not just intellectual assent in the facts, but rather it's a full commitment of the whole self to the whole Christ as both Savior and Lord.

40:53It's the old idea of the difference being the high wire act where the person has the wheelbarrow and he's up on top of the building and you get to be up there and you're watching this guy and you've seen him walk back and forth across the tightrope with the wheelbarrow. You see him do it 20 times. You've seen him even take other people in the wheelbarrow across, back and forth. He comes back over to the other side of the building, he says, do you believe that I can do that again? And you say, well, sure, I believe that you can do that again.

41:18I've seen it. I believe you can do that. Great, he says, get in the wheelbarrow.

41:25That's the difference in intellectual assent and saving faith. Intellectual assent says, I believe that Jesus is the Savior of the world, just like the man who stands on top of the building and says, I believe that you can get back and forth, but I'm not going to get in the wheelbarrow. Intellectual faith says, I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. But I also am going to trust in a little bit of my own self-righteousness.

41:51I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins but, you know what, I really don't want to fully surrender to him as the Lord of my life. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins but I'm not sure I believe that it's the only way that somebody can get to heaven.

42:09Instead of, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead so that I can live with him forever and that's my only hope in life.

42:18So that when we die, as Pastor Rod was talking about earlier, and we stand before the throne and the question is asked, why should I let you into my heaven?

42:31The only response that saving faith has is to point to Jesus, say, because of Him, because of Him.

42:45And if you have that belief, the promise here is that you will not perish but have eternal life. The word perish there, maybe that conveys the idea or communicates the idea to you that that's just a destruction, that you're gone.

43:02That, I don't believe, is what the Scriptures teach.

43:06The concept behind perishing is the concept of hell. Which elsewhere in the Bible is depicted as a place of eternal torment.

43:15Anguish, pain, suffering, unquenchable fire, there's gnashing of teeth, it's outer darkness.

43:25You say, I don't want that. Great, believe in Jesus. Believe that God so loved you that he gave his only Son, So that you would not perish, but have eternal life.

43:38And listen, if you're here this morning and you believe that, man, that— let that fire you up this morning. Let that give you some joy this morning. In the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, you've got joy because you know where you're going, right? That's our 3rd point this morning. It's this: live joyfully because God's loved you.

43:57Live joyfully now because he's loved you. So there's that twofold— well, threefold response. Number one, we're never going to get over this love. It's always going to fuel this gratitude in our lives.

44:06Second thing is, man, I'm going to love others like I've been loved. It's transforming my life. I need to go out and it's going to leak out of me because God has loved me so much. I'm overflowing with love for other people now. Third, it's going to change my outlook on things.

44:21I, when I got married that morning, cause I got married in the afternoon, I went to go play golf that morning with my future father-in-law and my dad and some others. And, and I enjoy golf and it's fun, but I'm like most people. I'm not great at it. And so I quickly learned that at a young age and I stopped caring as much when I realized, man, I'm just not going to be a professional golfer and that's okay with my life, right? But nonetheless, there's times, and usually this is in comparison to how much I've had to spend on the green fee to go play the course, that I can get disappointed if I make some bad shots.

44:57Well, that morning I don't even remember what I shot on the golf course. Guess what? I didn't care. I could have sliced my way around the whole course. If you're wondering, what is that?

45:06It's when the ball goes like this, okay? When it's supposed to go like this, okay? I could have missed every putt. I could have 4-putted, 5-putted every green. I could have played the worst round of golf on the face of the planet.

45:16And guess what? I would not have cared. You know why? Because I was getting married that afternoon. I knew what was coming.

45:23I knew what was waiting for me was my bride. I didn't care. Great. Let's go play golf, but can we get to 4:30 faster? Because it's time for me to get married.

45:31Right? Y'all, that's us in life right now. The wedding's coming for us as the bride. The bridegroom is going to come back for us, church. That day's coming.

45:41We get to be joyful right now. I'm not talking about you need to be slap-happy stupid grin on your face when life hurts. Yes, life hurts. We weep with those who weep, but not like those without hope. We've got this abiding joy that says, man, this is hard right now, but I know where I'm going because God loved me and gave his life for me, gave Christ for me so that I would not perish, but I've got eternal life coming around the corner.

46:08I don't know how people that don't have that hope keep going today.

46:13I mean, think about it at the macro level. You've got Russia and Ukraine, you've got Israel and Palestine now. You've got the open border crisis. You've got staggering inflation with no end in sight. We just got over a plague not long ago.

46:27I mean, you've got insane woke policies in the workplace now. You've got gender affirmation everywhere, same-sex, everything is out there now. How do you keep going in this world if you don't know God, if you don't have hope? Let me bring it down a little bit more. How do you keep going at home if you don't know him, if you don't have the hope of Jesus?

46:52Your marriage is a wreck. You've got health crises that you don't know how to deal with. You're facing unexpected loss, pressures from work, pressure from raising kids. You've got tension with other family members. You've got mounting costs and lessening income.

47:08How do you keep going? Without Jesus, in a hope that this world is not my home. Let me drill down one level deeper to you.

47:23Ongoing battle with sin, feelings of inadequacy that you don't measure up, an awareness that you're not where you thought you would be.

47:38How do you keep going?

47:41How do you put one foot in front of the other? How do you get out of bed in the morning?

47:47I don't know. If you don't have Jesus, if you've not come to know this reality that we're talking about this morning, that God so loved you that he gave you his only Son so that whoever should perish— and listen, death and taxes. Battin' 1,000, aren't they? All of us are going to die someday. That doesn't mean all of us are going to perish someday.

48:13And the deciding factor is Jesus. God so loved you that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. We just sang it a minute ago. Why should I gain from his reward? I can't give an answer.

48:31But this I know with all my heart, his wounds have paid my ransom. That ransom's paid and your future is his. So we get to live joyfully today, knowing come what may, we know what's coming. We've got an appointment with the groom. We're just waiting for him to come back for us.

48:53What a joyful thing that is that we get to hold onto and hold fast to. Why? Because of the love of God.

49:04That song that I began with has a final verse to it as well. It says this: Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, the stretch from sky to sky.

49:36Let's pray.

49:39Father, what love we have been made recipients of through Christ.

49:44That You so loved us that You gave Your only Son so that we, if we believe in Him, again committing the whole self to the whole Christ as both Lord and Savior, if we believe in Him we know where we're going, we know that our future is secure, we know and we can have joy that this world is not our home.

50:07But not only that, God, if we've experienced that love we can go and love others.

50:13Sacrificially, love others in a way that says to them, I'm living for something greater than me. To love others in a way that would cause them to say, why are you doing this for me? And give us an opportunity and a platform to say, because of the love that I've experienced.

50:30God, I pray, as we talked about at the very beginning, that you would always, always keep us in staggered awe of the love of Christ, the love of your heart, Father, that you loved us and gave us Christ so that if we believe in him, our future is secure. We will not perish, but we can confidently hope in eternal life. What a glorious reality. We thank you for that, how deep the Father's love is for us. In Jesus' name, Amen.