JOURNEY TO THE CROSS: WEEK TWO

CALL TO WORSHIP SCRIPTURE: HEBREWS 12:28

CHILDREN’S TIME SCRIPTURE: JOHN 7:37-39 (Have a bottle of water and ask them why we drink water, then read the scripture and talk about how Jesus is our “living water.”)

Chrystal and I started dating in 2000. October 21st to be exact. I don’t know when I realized it, but it wasn’t long before I realized how I felt about her. The more I spent time with her, the more I knew I was in love with her. Over the course of our time together, I have fallen more and more in love with her. I remember the first time I told her that I loved her. She had come and had Thanksgiving with my family. And when she left, I said, “Be careful going home...because I love you.” And do you know what she said? She said “What did you say??” So I said it again and she said “I love you too!” (Have some fun with this) And we have been saying it ever since!

Love. Sometimes we say we love in a wide variety of ways (have fun with this). It gets thrown around a lot, but what do we really know about love?

A lot of times when we think of love, it’s romantic love. Like when you find that special someone, and you really like them. (Has some fun with this!) Sometimes we might think it’s how we feel about our best friends. Sometimes when we think of love, it is about how we feel for our family.

But there is a love that is deeper than all of that. It’s a love that is deeper than family love. It is stronger than Romantic love, and it is more powerful than the deepest friendship love. Today I want to talk about the specific love that God has for us. If you were to look at love in the Bible, you’d see that there are different types of love that we experience. There’s family love. There’s a love known as phileo love, which is brotherly love, which is why the city of Philadelphia is known as the CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE (HAVE FUN WITH THIS - SAY FLY EAGLES FLY and GO BIRDS!)

Yet when it comes to talking about the love that God has, it is deeper then the the type of love that we can experience towards each other. In John chapter 3, we meet Nicodemus. He was a religious ruler around the time of Jesus. In fact he knew a lot about Jesus, had heard a lot about Jesus, and a bunch of his people were talking about Jesus. And so one night, Nicodemus meets up with Jesus and starts talking to him about how they know that he is from God. And then Jesus starts talking to him about what it means to be a child of God. And Nicodemus doesn’t understand so he asks Jesus more questions about what does it mean to be a child of God how can he be born again. So Jesus talks to him. Open up to John chapter 3. Jesus talks to him about love. Love. God loves us. Is it romantic love? No. Is it friend love? No. It is family love? No.

We will be looking at John 3:16-17. This passage is very well memorized and familiar, so while you’re turning there, let me set up what is going on. Here, John who is writing about Jesus life, John reveals that Jesus is from God. Not only that, but we also find the reason why God sent Christ.

Nicodemus actually initiates the conversation with Christ. Nicodemus tells Jesus that they know who Jesus is. They fully understood that Jesus was not just a guy. He wasn’t some crazy dude on a street corner yelling at people. They had heard about his healings, his miracles, and they were aware of the things that he said. They also knew that he was getting quite a following and a reputation as being from God. And so they were curious, especially Nicodemus. So, when he says “we,” he’s talking about the leaders of the Jewish people. He’s not talking about the Romans, but the Pharisees and Sadducees. The rulers of the law. They knew that Jesus was not like other false people who claimed to be anointed by God. They knew that Jesus was sent by God.

Jesus responds by telling Nicodemus that the only way to God is to be “born again.” Nicodemus clearly doesn’t understand this. You ever felt like you just had no idea what somebody said? Like you are at school and your teacher just said something that blew your mind? Or you were daydreaming and the teacher asked you a question and you were like OH NO! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON!

I think Nicodemus’ response is kind of a mixture of both reactions with him not understanding.

So Jesus goes and explains this. He then goes and retells the story of the Hebrews back in the OT times who were bitten by poisonous snakes and the only way to be healed was to look up at this staff that Moses held that had sculpted snakes on it. It is in this conversation that Jesus says that just like this rod would heal people when they looked upon it, so it is with Jesus, the Son of Man. It is in this moment where we will camp out at today.

Today, as we continue our journey to the cross, there are two truths that I want us to dwell on:

AS WE CONTINUE OUR JOURNEY TO THE CROSS:

1. God's Love is Unmerited

2. The Compassion of Christ

Let's pray.

Let’s dive in to John 3:16.

1. God’s Love Is Unmerited

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.

John 3:16 is such a powerful verse. It’s been called "The Gospel in a nutshell." It is the heart of the Gospel, and it reveals how God feels about you and me. Jesus tells Nicodemus that the length of God's love is so much so that He was willing to send His son so that you and I can have the hope of redemption. It is that word love that is the most significant of this.

In the Greek, the word for love here is AGAPE. When the word AGAPE is used for love, it is meant to describe the type of love that is a deep love. Not a love based on connection or benefit, but a love that is willing to give up for the benefit of others. It is a love of choice, choosing to love to the point of willing to sacrifice.

For the religious leaders, they believed that you earned God's favor, in a sense His love, based upon how you followed religious rules and traditions. And that when the Messiah would come, He would reward those who did good by their standards and punish those who did not. And before we get into those who have acted this way toward Jesus, I think for many people today, maybe even here, that mentality is the same. If you are a good person, do good things, then you found favor with God.

Yet, that isn't what Scripture teaches. Scripture says in Romans 3:23:

Romans 3:23 CSB

23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

So what Jesus is declaring to Nicodemus is that God's love is not based on any sort of merit or any good that we do! It is not based on our works! Nothing! God's love is based upon who HE IS and not who WE ARE or have done.

Gods love for you and me is deep and wide. God's love for you and me is because that is who God is. God in his full complete self IS love and his desire to save you and me is out of an overflow of who He is. And Gods desire is to transform us through trusting in Christ who is God in the flesh to a new identity. No longer defined by sin but redefined by the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is nothing that you can do to make God not love you. Yet for many of us, maybe even here today, we feel like we have done something so wrong that we cannot believe that God could still love us. Or maybe we think that someone else is beyond redemption in Christ. That leads to our second truth for today: The Compassion of Christ

2. The Compassion Of Christ

John 3:17 “17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

The world that we live in is a broken “dog eat dog” world. For many of us that are here today we give this same attitude to God. Some of you here may feel that God is just out to get you. For others, your mindset that God is that there is no way that God would ever give you a second chance. For you, you may feel like there is no hope and so for you, you feel like when it comes to faith, to God, to Christ - there is no hope.

God is Holy. God is righteous. However, Jesus in His discussion with Nicodemus reveals the mission of Jesus. It is not to condemn. Because of the fall we are already to condemn. That’s why the Scripture teaches us in Romans 5:12

Romans 5:12 CSB

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.

God is not a god who repeatedly condemns. It would be a violation of who God is. So Jesus was sent out of God’s complete love to save and not condemn. That was Jesus’ mission — to save. Not condemn - our sin is what already has condemned us. It is because of God’s love displayed through the compassion of Christ that we can have the faith that when we confess our sins that He will forgive us. God’s desire is not to condemn what is already condemned, but to redeem. That’s why a few verses later in Romans, it says:

Romans 5:18–21 CSB

18 So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is justification leading to life for everyone. 19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Did you catch that? If God was unloving and uncompassionate, to where God was just looking to get you if you mess up, then what we just read is a lie and there would be no reason to be here. Yet, we are here because Christ came to redeem and not condemn. You are not beyond the grip of grace. Christ’s mission was the means of a loving, compassionate God who was willing to sacrifice so that you and I can experience the ability to have a redeemed life with God forever.

You are deeply loved.

Unconditionally.

As we head to a time of invitation, may we pause and reflect that as we journey to the cross that we respond to the call to embrace God’s sacrificial love so that it will transform our identity and compel us to live as reflections of that love in a broken world.

Go down for the invitation.