No Greater Love

Love is such a complex and so simple thing isn’t it? I was not a country music fan growing up but this woman I was interested in was, so in an effort to impress her, I started listening to country music. I wanted to at least understand what she liked. Now I have come to enjoy country music and that woman is now my wife. One of my favorite songs is Oh Love by Brad Paisley and Carrie underwood. Listen to these lyrics:

Strong like a mother holds her child Free as horses running wild And real as a prayer on a lonely night And sure as the ocean tide

Deep as the life from Gods own breath And it's even after death Gone like the sunset

You can break a heart in pieces Put it back together again

You can break down sweet forgiveness You're the one that never ends

Oh love Oh the many colors that you're made of You heal, You bleed You're the simple truth And you're the biggest mystery Oh love

I love that line: You’re the simple truth and you’re the biggest mystery. Love is not a single emotion. It is a sea of emotions. It is complex because it comes from a complex God. Today we are going to talk about the love of God.

We are going to dive into the most famous Bible verse of all time: John 3:16. This verse is so popular, even those who have never read the Bible probably know this verse. It is the gospel in a sentence. It is on billboards, poster boards at sporting events, T-shirts, you name it. We who are church veterans know this verse by heart. It will be the foundation for the message you are hearing today.

We also know that this verse does not stand in isolation. Therefore, we must know its context. Jesus had started his public ministry. He has invited a few men to follow him and learn from him. So far in the timeline, Peter, Andrew, Nathaniel, Philip, and an unnamed disciple. They traveled with him to the wedding in Cana where he turned water into wine. They were with him when they traveled to Jerusalem and Jesus overturned the tables of the sellers of livestock and money changers.

While he was in jerusalem, he caught the attention of a man named Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee, one of the religious experts in their culture. Pharisees had a very strict interpretation of the scriptures and an even stricter set of traditions. These are the guys that sit around and think about theological concepts all day. Nicodemus heard about Jesus and sought an audience with him. So under the cover of night, Jesus and Nicodemus sat down together and we see that conversation unfold in the first 21 verses of John chapter three.

Nicodemus is curious about who Jesus is and where he comes from. He knows enough to know that the things Jesus does cannot happen unless God is part of the equation. Jesus tells him that to enter the kingdom of God he must be born again. Nicodemus finds this hard to understand. How can a man be born twice? Jesus tells him that the birth he is talking about is spiritual birth. He uses a story from the time of Moses as an example. While they were in the wilderness waiting to be led into the promised land, everyone was bitten by venomous snakes. God told Moses to craft a serpent out of bronze and hang it on a pole. If the people believed God, looked to the bronze serpent for healing, they would have it. In the same way, Jesus is telling Nicodemus that to be spiritually reborn one must look to the Son of Man for salvation and the spiritual rebirth necessary to enter into the kingdom of God.

Then Jesus says in John 3:16

John 3:16 NASB95

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

This morning we are going to take a verse that is so familiar to us church veterans and break it down to see what the most popular verse has to do with Christmas.

If we look at the structure of this sentence carefully, you will notice there are three commas and one period. If we break that apart, we can look at it as follows:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, That whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Let’s start from the beginning. God (the subject) loved (the verb) the world (the direct object).

God loves the whole world.

The English language can be extremely tricky. It seems to defy its own rules all of the time. We use a lot of words to communicate one idea and then we use one word to express many ideas. How many ways can we describe something we think is cool? Awesome? Fantastic? Excellent? How many words do we use to express the idea of love? Just one!

The New Testament was written in Greek and they used three words for love, each having different levels of meaning. There is phileo, which is the general word for a relationship between two people. You could say that you phileo friends, family, church members or coworkers. The second word is eros, which carries a sensual connotation. It is rooted in attraction. This is the word used to describe Ahasuerus’ love for Esther. Then there is agape, which expresses deep attraction. It is a more intimate love that expresses love of an unconditional and selfless nature. It is rarely used in Greek writing because of its special meaning. Guess which one is used in John 3:16. Agape. God so loved the world unconditionally and selflessly that he sent His Son.

In Hebrew we see something similar. The word ahev is the general term for love that describes a relationship between two people. But there is a greater and deeper word for love that is very difficult to capture the full meaning of in English. This is the word hesed. It is often translated in the Bible as lovingkindness. You see this over and over in Psalm 136. The phrase, “For His lovingkindness is everlasting” is repeated 26 times. Other translations read, “For His steadfast love endures forever.” This is that same Hebrew word. Here is why this is important. This word speaks to God’s covenant love for his chosen people. It is difficult to describe this love.

Gordon Clark is the author of a book that does a very technical analysis of the word hesed in the Hebrew bible. As he summarized his findings, he tried to describe the meaning behind the word. Look what he wrote:

The Word Hesed in the Hebrew Bible 7. Summary

חֶסֶד is not merely an attitude or an emotion; it is an emotion that leads to an activity beneficial to the recipient. The relative status of the participants is never a feature of the חֶסֶד act, which may be described as a beneficent action performed, in the context of a deep and enduring commitment between two persons or parties, by one who is able to render assistance to the needy party who in the circumstances is unable to help him- or herself.

Whoa! Did you hear that? God’s love is so great that he desires to covenant with people who because of the circumstances are unable to help themselves. This is what we have been saying for the past couple weeks! The basis for Christmas is God’s deep and enduring love for his people, a love that led to an activity beneficial to the recipient, namely us!

God’s love led to action.

God’s love led to the greatest gift ever given: the gift of His Son. The next phrase in John 3:16 says, “that He gave His only begotten Son.” True love demands action. Just like you cannot love someone else without ever demonstrating it, God cannot love us without demonstration. His demonstration was sending His Son. Jesus is talking about himself to Nicodemus. Jesus is the Son God sent. Jesus is not a myth or an accident. He was sent. It was an intentional act of God. The baby in a manger we see during Christmas is not just the birth of a cute baby, but the birth of hope, of peace, of joy, and of love. The promises of God are wrapped up in such a tiny package.

One of my favorite Christmas songs is called Here with Us by Joy Williams. The opening verse goes like this:

It's still a mystery to me That the hands of God could be so small How tiny fingers reaching in the night Were the very hands that measured the sky

God is the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Creator God who no one can fathom. He is perfect in love, in justice, in compassion, in mercy. I like it the way Isaiah says it:

Isaiah 40:28 CSB

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding.

All that God is dwelt in human form. It is this child we celebrate at Christmas. Like I said before, without Christ, we do not celebrate Christmas. We celebrate something else. Christ is the gift that God gave because of his love for us.

God’s gift ensures God’s promise.

Finally, we have God’s promise. We saw God’s love which led to action in giving us His Son with the promise that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. What Jesus is saying to Nicodemus (and what we all know) is that the default position of human beings is perishing. Everyone will perish. We know the sting of death. We have felt its finality. But Jesus is telling Nicodemus that whoever believes in the only begotten Son does not perish. Instead, they have eternal life.

The message of the gospel is extremely simple. Believe in Jesus as the Son of God, trust in His work on the cross as payment for your sins, turn from those sins and to his righteousness, and you will be saved. You will escape the judgment of God for the wrongs you have committed. Instead, you will be given the gift of eternal life. This does not come from ourselves. It is a gift of God. So for the past few weeks we have learned that God’s character never changes. He is not moody. He does not go from happy and joyful to grumpy and angry at a moment’s notice. He is perfectly emotionally balanced. He also never lies. He does not need to. To lie would be to act contrary to his already perfect nature, which would mean his nature is not really perfect, and everything I just said about his unchanging nature is a lie. So, because he is unchanging in character, and he never lies, everything he says is true. And because Jesus is God in human flesh, whatever he says is true. He promises that whoever believes in Him shall not perish. Instead, you will have everlasting life. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, one day so will all who have believed in Him.

John 15:13 NASB95

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

There are two truths we have to embrace here. The first is that there is a path that God had intended for us that is true and right, which gives us peace, purpose, and assurance. But we have strayed from that path. We chose to go our own way, but that path has led to death, destruction, and isolation from God. But the promise is that God has provided a way for us to get back on the right path and that way is Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 14:6,

John 14:6 (NASB95)

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

If we choose to follow Jesus and accept his payment for our sins on the cross, God will forgive us and we can go back to being on the right path that leads to life, peace, purpose, and assurance. Are you here today and you find you are on the wrong path? If you come to Jesus, he will put you on the right path. Will you trust him today?

For those of us who have already been reconciled to God, remember God has a gift for everyone and he has chosen us as messengers to deliver the gift to those we know. But often we drop the ball on this. We fail to share the gift with others. Don’t leave the gift at home. Do not choose to stay silent about the gift. Commit in the coming days as we approach Christmas and in the new year to continue to share the gift. We will be having evangelism training next year so we can work on doing a better job of sharing the greatest gift ever given. Will you join me?