The Greatest Love of all

The Greatest Love of all John 3:16

If you brought your bibles, turn with me over to the gospel of John chapter three. The gospel of John chapter three and in a moment we are going to read verse 16 of the gospel of John chapter three.

You may not even need to turn in your bibles to this passage, because this is the worlds most familiar passage of scripture. It is brief and to the point. Jesus teaches us that God’s love is the greatest love of all.

We live in a world of unlovable people. We are surrounded by people who are full of violence and hatred. And to make matters worse we are divided as a country on every issue.

We are divided by the government and the media. We are divided by race and religion. We are divided as families; as brothers and sisters.

It doesn’t matter what you stand for or believe in. There is always someone who will disagree with you, and that used to be okay, but not anymore.

I recently saw an interview with a man on the streets of Chicago, yelling at a reporter for saying , Hamas is a terrorist organization that killed Jewish people on October 7th.

Everyone knows that’s true. Everyone knows that actually happened, whether you agree with the war in Gaza or not.

I think we can all agree that violence, and hatred, of any kind is evil and shouldn’t be tolerated.

But how can we begin to heal as people who have learned to hate each other so much?

The answer is the love of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus came into the world to show us that God loves us. And the cross is the greatest example of that love.

No act of human love can compare to it. We love the people who love us. We love the people who treat us well and are kind to us. But the cross teaches us that God loves the unlovable.

Jesus hung on the cross and looked out at those who were crucifying Him and said, “Father forgive them for they no not what they do.”

That is the love of God. And what we learn from this passage is; God’s love is the greatest love of all, and it is our path as Christians, to healing and forgiveness.

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.

In our passage this morning we learn how incredible the love of God is.

The idea that God loved the whole world was a new idea to the Jewish people. They believed that God loved them because they were religious. They were God’s chosen people, but they believed He hated the Gentiles. The Gentiles were barbarians to them.

Those same ideas have been held by religious people throughout history. The idea that God truly loves everyone universally is shocking to us.

I mean, how could God love an immoral person? How could He love a murderer, a rapist, a thief and a prostitute?

The fact is; God loves everyone and not just the good people, not just the religious people. He doesn’t just love the people who love Him back, but He loves everyone and that’s good news for all of us, because, there are times we are all unlovable.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” So, I am incredibly grateful that God loves everyone because that includes me and you.

What we learn from this passage. God’s love is the greatest love of all. The first thing I want you to see is;

The Passion of God’s Love. “For God so Loved the World.”

The source of Love itself is God and we see that here in the text. God’s love is deep and abiding.

Notice the word “so.” “For God so loved the world.” That speaks of the intensity and the depth of His love.

In fact, the word “so” comes first in the original language and it is emphatic. It reads “For “so” God loved the world.

All of that speaks of the passion of God reaching through the cross of Jesus Christ to show us His love.

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

That means that even when you didn’t care about God He loved you so much He was making away for you to go to heaven and spend eternity together with Him.

Love is an action word, it acts. It doesn’t just sit around and do nothing. It’s not dormant or inactive. For love to actually be love, it has to do something good.

And God’s love has did that. Jesus Christ willingly came into the world and went to the cross to make the love of God known to us.

The cross is the supreme example of the love of God, and It is a love that began in eternity past.

God has always loved us even before we were born, He loved us and had a plan for our life. And we need to understand that, and believe that, If we are going to survive in a world full of hate.

God’s love is so vast, and so wide, and so wonderful that it is incomprehensible to us.

Psalm 103:17 “But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.”

In Genesis chapter one we have recorded for us the beginning of time and the creation of the world. And it’s there we find the repeated phrase, “God saw all He had made and it was good.”

And on the sixth day God created mankind and you became the crown jewel of His creation. You became the focal point of His love.

In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us in Matt. 6, not even a sparrow falls to the ground that God is unaware of and how much more important you are than all of the sparrows.

God’s love is focused on us and it came to fruition at the cross so that we could be saved. So that we could live different from the world around us. So that we could love a world that is unlovable.

God teaches us how to do that, how to love a world that refuses to love us back. Why because it is God’s nature to love.

We would not know what love is, apart from God because it is God who first loved us.

1 John 4:7, 10 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us.”

I am reminded of the old story of the emperor who falls in love with the peasant girl in his kingdom. It would have been absurd for the peasant girl to fall in love with the emperor and initiate the relationship.

But because he looked on her first with love, it made all the difference in the world. Now she could become the queen. Now, she was free to love him and be loved by him.

Well, the same thing is true in our relationship with God. God has initiated His love toward us in Jesus Christ, and now we can love Him because He first loved us.

Notice God’s love is unconditional. Look again at the verse. “For God so loved the world.”

The word “love” here is “agape” and John uses it on purpose. Because it speaks of the unconditional love of God.

In other words, God loves us in spite of us.

That means that God’s love for us has nothing to do with how good we are, or how beautiful we are, or how hard we work to please God. God loves us because God is love.

Think about it like this, If you were a holy and righteous God would you love this world, a world that lives in opposition and rebellion against you? Of course not. But God has chosen to love us anyway, with an unconditional love.

I think about my gran-daughter Georgia. Georgia can be sweet as pie and mean as a snake at the same time.

But, It never changes the way I feel about her. Because my love for her isn’t based on whether she is good or bad. But it is based on who she is.

That is the way that God loves us, He created us, we belong to Him, and He looks beyond our faults and sees our needs.

I am reminded of the Casey boys who lived down the street. These were the two meanest boys in the world. They had a dog they used to beat and threw rocks at.

Yet everyday when they got off the bus and ,came home from school that dog ran to the gate wagging it’s tail waiting to see those boys.

That is unconditional love. That is God’s love for us. And if God can love us like that, then we can love a world that is unlovable. We can be kind to people who are unkind to us. We can listen to people we disagree with.

God’s love is the greatest love of all.

2. The Proof of God’s Love. “He gave His only begotten Son.”

God proved His love for us by the value of the gift He has given us. He gave His son. His only begotten Son as proof of His love.

This is the heart of John 3:16. The nature of unconditional love is to give, and not just give what’s easy, but give until it hurts, in a sacrificial way.

And I’m not talking about giving your tithes and your offering. I’m talking about giving your all, and your everything.

God gave His only begotten Son. He gave the most important thing that could be given. His love was sacrificial and commited. There is no halfway with God. He gave all that He had and what was most important to Him completely for us.

That is a love that is proven. That is a love you can count on and be sure of. And because God has proven His love for us it’s time we start proving our love for Him.

We do that by putting His Word into action. By loving our neighbor as ourselves.

That means you help those around you who are in need. That means being kind to the waitress who makes a mistake on your order.

That means showing grace to the driver who is in your way and doesn’t know where they are going. That means forgiving people because you have been forgiven.

The emphasis in this passage is how incredible the gift of God is. He gave His only Son. And because God has given so sacrificially for us it requires an equal sacrifice on our part.

Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

When my wife buys me a gift for Christmas I work hard to try and find out what it is, because i don’t want to be cheap if she has bought me something expensive.

Well with God we already know what the gift is, and there is nothing we can give God that can compare. All we can do is offer Him our lives by being kind and gracious to the world He loves.

Now it is important we understand that when this speaks of Jesus as the only begotten Son of God, it is not referring to His origin. He was not created like some of the false teachers of the past suggest. This is speaking of how unique He is.

Jesus is the only one of His kind. He is the one and only unique Son of God. That’s what makes this gift so special.

And just so we can relate to just how sacrificial the love of God is we were given an Old Testament example.

Genesis 22:2–10, where God told Abraham to take his son, his only son in whom he loves and offer him as sacrifice on Mount Moriah (Btw, is Mount Calvary)

You know the rest of the story. How God provided a ram in the thicket as a substitute for Abraham’s son.

But when God’s only Son went to the cross there was no substitute. Because Jesus was the substitute for your sin and mine.

Isaiah 53:10 “But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, and put Him to grief.”

When we think about who killed Jesus it is important we understand it was not the Roman soldiers. It wasn’t Pontius Pilate, or the Jewish leaders. It was the invisible hand of God that placed Him on the altar of sacrifice. It was God that transferred our sin to His Son as a demonstration of His love for us.

Think about how much God most have loved you that He would put His Son to death so that you could live. So that you could be forgiven and free and accepted in His sight.

God’s love is the greatest love of all.

3. The Purpose of God’s Love. “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

God’s love has a threefold purpose that we can see in this passage.

Notice God’s purpose was to save us from perishing. That was our condition before the cross, we were all perishing.

To perish is to live in a lost state. To be cut off spiritually from God, now and forever. It is to live without peace and hope in this world, and have no confidence the world to come.

To perish speaks of having to live knowing you will die and face judgment from God and separation from your loved ones in hell for eternity.

But God, in His great love for us, rescued us from perishing. He rescued us from condemnation.

Romans 8:1 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The purpose of God’s love was to save us from perishing. All of mankind stands condemned on death row, waiting for the executioner. But because of God’s great love we can come to the cross and find forgiveness, freedom, peace, and security.

Notice God’s purpose was to save us to eternal life. “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

It is important we understand that eternal life is not just about a quantity of time but about quality of life.

Eternal life absolutely speaks of our future home in heaven. It speaks of our living and dwelling in the presence of God forever. It absolutely speaks of golden streets where there are no more tears, pain, sorrow, and suffering.

But it also speaks of the quality of our life we live right now. Your salvation begins the moment you receive Jesus.

Notice the present tense of the verse; “But have eternal life.” This is not something you wait for, this is something you have right now.

Jesus said, “I come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

It is God’s desire, because of His great love for you, that you live in the fulness of the Spirit right now. God wants to fill our lives with love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. That’s what the purpose of His love was for. He sent His Son into the world so that we could live in freedom now and forever.

Notice that God’s purpose was to save us through belief. “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

It is important we understand that when John uses the word believe he is talking about commitment and trust.

Believing to John is not just accepting the fact that Jesus is the Savior of the world, It is making Him the Savior of your world. The leader of your life and center of who you are.

It is not enough to hear the truth and know the truth. It requires that we do something about it.

Jesus Christ as our Savior should change the way we think, what we believe, and the way we behave. It should change our approach to life and the people around us.

We are living for something bigger and more important than ourselves. We are living for God’s purpose for our life, so no matter what is going on in the world around you, you don’t to be afraid, because you are living in the love of God.

Romans 8:38–39 NASB95

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul tries to cover every possible circumstance we could face in life and he says, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

As Christians, living in a world that surrounds us with so much hate, we need to believe this with all our heart, so that we don’t allow ourselves to became jaded and bitter toward people.

We are to be separated from the world of sin, but we are never to be isolated from the world God loves.

Our lives are to be living examples that God not only loves us but He loves everyone.

I pray that when you hear John 3:16 again, you hear of the great love of God for you. A love of God that is passionate toward you. A love of God that has been proven to you, and a love of God that has a purpose for your life.

I pray that when you hear John 3:16 again you hear God’s love, because it is the greatest love of all.