John 3:16

Sermon Style Sheet

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Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

Call to Worship

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Psalm 150:3–5 CSB

3 Praise him with the blast of a trumpet; praise him with harp and lyre. 4 Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and flute. 5 Praise him with resounding cymbals; praise him with clashing cymbals.

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Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number: 11:53-12:37 1:49-2:26 2:47-3:20

John 3:16–21 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. 19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”

Opening Illustration:

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History is filled with grand love stories.

King Edward the 8th actually abdicated the throne of England so he could marry his American love.

Closer to reality, the Hanging Gardens of babylon were built because of Nebuchadnezzar’s wife was homesick and he wanted her to feel better.

In Greek Mythology Perseus fought a sea monster to save Andromeda

Orpheus actually went to the underworld to save his love.

There are a lot of grand gestures of love.

My favorite gesture of love was a little simpler, just because I think it is a bit wild. In ancient greece, if you were a gentlemen who fell in love with a woman and you wanted to express that love - do you know what they would do - they would throw an apple at her!

Here is a statue of that. It was related to an event in greek mythodlogy where an apple was thrown to a group goddesses to create infighting with the phrase “to the most beautiful one” So they had to argue over which one it was meant for.

Imagine that, you are walking along and they throw an apple at you! Apples can hurt! Hey there’s by boyfriend Jeff - Bang! Oh great, he wants to get married! You had to either pick up the apple or catch it to accept the proposal. I don’t know what happens if the woman is knocked out!

But here’s the point - the reason why history has these stories, is because of something very straight forward

Love is shown in our actions

Here’s what we are going to see - no one has displayed their love more than God for us

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Getting into the Sermon

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Recap: Jesus is talking to Nicodemus: Nicodemus is a Pharisee and he is part of the sanhedrin

He is a pharisee which was a political/religious group that focused on being faithful to God’s covenant and even going so far as adding to the law.

He just got done explaining that salvation is God’s work and it is based on faith. You have to have faith in Christ to be saved.

So now Jesus is continuing

John 3:16 CSB

16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Now he is explaining God’s love. he is showing him how much God loved the world - God showed his love in actions.

Now let’s just pause here a second and focus on one word - God love the world. Everyone say that word out loud - the world.

Now even a lot of non christians have heard this verse and it isn’t all that surprising but this would have been mind blowing to Nicodemus.

Nicodemus didn’t care about the world - he cared about israel. He didn’t think that God really cared about the world, not in any meaningful way.

They wouldn’t eat with a gentile. They turned the court of the gentiles into a marketplace. They weren’t trying to teach people about God.

They absolutely didn’t care about the world.

God’s love crosses borders

But that was something that was different between them and God. God cared about the world. The whole world. All ethnicities and groups.

He wanted to bring people from every tongue tribe and nation to himself. He cared about everyone and he demonstrated that love by sending his son.

He is talking about God the son - the trinity - but it is always mentioned as a very special relationship.

He allowed his son to face significant suffering for us. There is a thing now a days called “Gentle parenting.” I don’t know if you do it. It’s the natural outflow of something that started around m generation of helicopter parents.

The central focus of each idea is that your kids shouldn’t suffer. They shouldn’t have hardships. They shouldn’t have pain.

Under what circumstances would you allow you kids to suffer?

I saw a science fiction movie where a person had the opportunity to save the world, but it would cost them their son. They would have had to sacrifice and then everyone else's’ kids and everyone else generally would be saved. And they wouldn’t do it.

It was supposed to be something noble.

But here is the deal, God’s love for you, God’s love for the lost, God’s love for the people of the world was so great that he would send his son to suffer so that people could be saved.

God’s love motivated his sacrifice

God was willing to sacrifice a love greater than we could imagine to save people who hated him.

Even though he loved you he couldn’t have a relationship with you because of sin

Jesus continues in verse 17

John 3:17–18 CSB

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.

Recently I was talking with two different unbelievers and they both had a similar hang up - why would God send people to hell just because they didn’t believe the right religion?

Maybe you have heard this argument before. I mean a person is born in China and they never hear about Christ and then the person goes to hell just because they don’t believe?

Here’s the problem - Don’t mistake the cure for the sickness.

The reason why people are condemned to hell isn’t because they don’t believe Christ. The go to hell because of sin.

Think about the 10 commandments - God’s moral law. Let’s just go through them real quick.

Number 10 - Don’t Covet? Have you ever saw something that someone had and wanted it? I mean their T.V. their car, their spouse, their dog. It’s all sin

Number 9- Don’t Lie - have you never lied? Really? Yes you have.

Number 8 - Don’t Steal - you’ve never taken something that didn’t belong to you?

Number 7 - Don’t Commit Adultery - don’t even look at another person?

Number 6 - Don’t Murder - anger and hate. Let me illustrate it by saying two names: Donald trump, Hillary Clinton. My guess is that one of those names brings up some anger.

Number 5: Honor Your Father and Mother - none of you were perfect kids!

Number 4 Remember the Sabbath and Keep it Holy - have you always honored Sundays, come to church and never done anything wrong on it?

Number 3 - Don’t take the Name of the Lord in Vain- You’ve never said his name wrong - or as a christian, never acted out in a way to cause people to dishonor God

Number 2- Don’t Make an Idol - that means you have never had wrong thoughts about God? You never worshiped something else

Number 1 - No Other Gods - you have never had other gods.

Look, not only have you broken one of those commandments, you’ve broken ALL those commandments. You are guilty of all of them.

It doesn’t make sin less weighty it makes all of us more guilty than we think

That’s the problem. That’s why people are condemned.

Sin is the sickness . Christ is the cure.

Imagine someone with a terminal illness, doesn’t take the medicine and then complains.

Or think of it this way, the president pardons some people but not all people. But nobody is in prison because they didn’t get pardoned - they are in prison because they committed a crime.

That’s what even verse 18 is getting at when it says, “anyone who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed” it saying they were already condemned and they remain condemned because thy are refusing the pardon!

Now that doesn’t make sense. Why would people do that?

Jesus explains in verse 19 and 20

John 3:19–20 CSB

19 This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed.

Turning on the light people get angry

There is a meme i’ve seen where someone says I am so tired, I would do anything to get 8 hours of sleep a night

and then the person responds- go to bed 8 hours before you have to get up

Nahh

That’s what sin is. People love the darkness. They don’t want to change. They don’t want the consequences but they don’t want to come to Christ. They still love their sin.

Peciditos - pet sin you want Jesus to save your soul but leave your hobbies

Jesus comes in but not as a welcomed guest but as an interruption turning on the light.

There’s a great line in Lord of the Rings that capture this. There is a character in the story named Gollum and he get’s spiritually captured by a magic ring. It’s cooler in the story than it sounds. But it actually takes some spiritual control over him. It controls him.

Even years after he loses the ring, he is haunted by it and driven by it. Everything he is is trying to get that ring.

So at a point in the story, two characters are talking about Gollum and the wise leader, Gandalf, says to the other character “Gollum both loves and hates the ring, just like he both loves and hates himself.”

I think that can capture our connection to sin. We hate sin, we hate what it does to us, we hate how it lets us down, we hate how it ruins our relationships. We hate it deeply. But we also love it. We love the thrill. We love the rush. We love the immediacy of fulfilling our desires.

Loving sin is hating yourself

We both love and hate the sin, but we do that because we both love and hate ourselves. We love ourselves and want to be comforted and fulfilled. We want to imagine a greater reality for ourselves.

But we hate ourselves and we don’t think that we can do any better. We don’t think that we can live above it. We don’t think we deserve anything else. We know the light is for the best, but we still hide in the darkness because that’s what we think we are.

But God just hates sin and loves you.

Listen, God was motivated by his love for you, sent his son to die for you so that you don’t have face the punishment of your sin - so stop punishing yourself. He rose again to defeat it’s control over you. So don’t live controlled by it.

ABC’s of repentance

Jesus invites us to a better life.

John 3:21 CSB

21 But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”

but if you do, you will walk in the light. There is a better way. There is a life of connection to christ and fueled by the Spirit. We don’t have to wallow in the mud. We can live better, with joy, with freedom, with a lightness of heart.

God shows his love by giving us life in the light.

You know when you sin, you feel heavy, spiritually weighed down. How much better to live in the light!

But not only does this make your life better it reveals something to the world. It shows that your good works are accomplished by God.

God really loves you. He really loves you.

Maybe you feel rejected by God. You feel like God is ashamed of you. Listen, he really loves you - he was motivated by love to send Jesus to die for you and to give you a new life. Does that sound like someone who has rejected you?

Maybe you feel alone or abandoned by God. That’s a lie - God loves you so much that he send his son so you wouldn’t be condemned.

He knew your sin when he did that. He still did it.

Maybe you feel inadequate or hopeless - God gives you his Spirit to allow you to walk in the light. You couldn’t do it on your own, but you are not on your own. You can do it now.

God really loves you. He has shown his love in action.

So let’s live in the joy and security of that love.

Have you ever seen a women right after she get’s engaged? What does she do? She shows off her ring - doesn’t matter the size. She’s not showing off that ring, not really, she’s showing off that someone loves her. That someone has chosen her. That to someone, she is the most beautiful one and she wants to bring you into the celebration.

Listen, God loved you so much he sent his son, so let’s be confident in that love so much that we show it off. That we want other people to know. That we can’t help but tell people about it. We have the invitations, keep some with you. You never know when you want to tell someone about the love of God for you and remember, inviting people to church is the easiest way to start those spiritual converations.

Let’s live in the joy of that love

You are loved. You are in a community of people who are loved. Let’s show off that love together.

He is offering us freedom and a new way to live.

Here’s where this should strike you - God really loves you.

I just want you to pause a second. He really loves you.

One of the 10 commandments is not to take the name of God in vain and we think about that as not using profanities with God’s name. And certainly that is part of it. But it is deeper than that.

We bear God’s name and people judge God based on us. They judge his love based on our love. They judge his holiness based on our holiness. They judge his goodness based on our goodness.

That can seem like a heavy burden but the good works are accomplished by God in us. We are united with him and filled with his spirit. We get to walk in the light.

So dream with me a little bit- dream with me about living in the light. About what it would mean for you to be so confident in God’s love that you project that confidence in your life and in your prayers.

Imagine being so filled with God’s love that you start to love like God loves. You too desire for people to know him and experience that love because you are so wrapped up in it but you aren’t self conccious about it because you were more amazed at God’s love for you than the akwardenss of talking to someone about it.

Imagine living in the light, free from the guilt and shame and free from the pressures and weight of your sin. You could live with a light heart knowing that you are in the light.

That’s what’s offered to us in christ! A total transformation.

Now imagine if we lived that way together. Dream with me about a church where we taught people to live in the light with Christ, amazed each day by God’s love! Imagine how that would affect the community, your kids, your family.

So listen, if that sounds like the type of church you want, let’s do that, let’s make Mercy Hill that church together.

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.