WHEN GOD GAVE

WHEN GOD GAVE John 3:16 December 6, 2009 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Prayer and dismissal of children to Kid City John 3:16 is perhaps the most popular Bible verse of all. Let’s read it together. Lots of people quote it—some not knowing what it means, and others deeply familiar with its meaning and wanting to impress others with its meaning. For some reason it has become popular around the sport of football. Tom Tebow is an excited promoter of John 3:16. And, of course, there’s this guy. I wonder how he can afford to get to all those games? The Love That Motivates There is something in particular in this great text I want us to focus on this morning. That is motivation. Consider what it is that motivated God to give His Son to the world. What was it? It was His love for the world. It was the love of God that motivated His gift. Made in the image of God, we, too, are motivated by love. When we love, our hearts, our hands, our wallets and all our resources open up in generosity. Love is the most powerful motivator for giving. To our shame, we children of God are too easily motivated by such things as guilt and greed, when we are called to let love be our motive in all things. As the apostle Paul said, the love of Christ constrains us. What motives are driving you, Christian? Bob Kuechenberg, the former Miami Dolphins great, explained to Newsweek magazine what motivated him to go to college. “My father and my uncle were human cannonballs in carnivals. My father told me, ‘go to college or be a cannonball.’ Then one day my uncle came out of the cannon, missed the net and hit the ferris wheel. I decided to go to college. A man was always late for his appointments at the dental office. When he called for an appointment for a root canal, the receptionist wanted to help with his tardiness. She said, “Will you be able to be on time for your appointment?” “Well,” he said, “ I might be about ten minutes late. That won’t be a problem , will it?” "No," she told him. "We just won't have time to give you an anesthetic." ‘Turned out he arrived early that day. John 3:16 teaches us that God was moved by His love for mankind, even though we were is open rebellion against Him, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves—something we desperately needed: to be reconciled with Him, and be restored to the hope of eternal life with Him. I hope you knew for certain how much you are loved by the God who created you. He loved you with tender care even from before the time when He oversaw your formation in your mother’s womb. And yes, He has been wounded by your sins, and He has been saddened by the separation those sins have created between you and Him. But this one thing is clear—He still loves you, and nothing has ever or will ever diminish that love. No matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done—and He already knows it all, you cannot hide anything from Him—He still loves you, and longs to have you back in a close relationship with Him. The Bible says, This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. (1 John 3:16) The Gift that Love Motivates And He made sure this magnificent verse, John 3:16, was included in the Bible—His love letter to us. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. So He gave his one and only Son. “Only begotten” is the familiar King James translation of this term. The translation is important because it distinguishes Jesus as the unique, divine Son of God from the rest of us, who as Christians are God’s adopted children through our faith in Jesus. I was reading in the prayer of Jesus in John 17 the other day, and verse 23 stood out to me. There, as Jesus prayed for the unity of His followers He says to the Father, …to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them… There it is again, He loved us and sent Jesus. The Reciprocal Nature of Loving and Giving As I touched on earlier, being made in God’s image, we often find that our motives, emotions and responses are similar to those in God’s nature. Just as God is motivated by love, man at his best is motivated by love. And just as God’s love motivated Him to give, so we are motivated by love to give. 1 John 4:19 is one of those very brief and very direct verses worth memorizing. It speaks of motive: We love because he first loved us. God built into His design for us a certain reciprocity. As He loved and gave to us, He desires that we respond by loving Him. Of course, there are clear differences: our gifts to God are imperfect, unlike His perfect giving to us; and while God gives to us based on what we need, God has no need that we can meet by giving to Him. Not to mention, we have nothing to give God except what He gives us to give Him. Nevertheless, it is His desire that we who love Him should give to Him. It is a beautiful plan, really. God loves us and demonstrates His love by giving to us through His divine providence all we need, including and especially the gift of His Son for our salvation. That prompts our loving response to Him, and out of that perfect love motive, we give to Him. What do we give to God? Worship – respect – obedience – service – offerings – our “lives” really. These are all things appropriate to a loving response to God, and love is the perfect motivation for every one of them. In fact, man is at his best when he gives to God, out of love for God. I want to take a minute or two to focus on the area of giving offerings to God. And the reason I do is simply this: of all the modes of loving response to God, we seem to have the hardest time with our money. It’s no secret why that is true—we live in a materialistic culture today that honors money like a god. And the Word of God has much to say about these matters. We are warned that a rich person finds it as possible to enter into the kingdom of heaven as a camel does going through the eye of a needle. We’re taught that you cannot serve God and money simultaneously, because either one must have our complete devotion and it is impossible to be devoted to both. We are instructed that God is the owner and dispenser of all riches, but He calls us each to steward His resources, in keeping with what He allows us to have. And we know from His Word that while God certainly does not need our money, He nevertheless requires of us that we generously, consistently and cheerfully give into His kingdom work. You know, in spite of the great, healthy counsel we get from the Bible about all things financial, we do tend to place way too much value on money and stuff for its own sake, rather than as a tool 10. with which to honor God. Let’s just meditate on John 3:16. A man named Jerry had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. It was a serious condition and he could receive little company because the doctors didn’t want him to get too excited. While in the hospital Jerry’s rich uncle died and left him a cool million dollars. His family wondered how to break the news to him with the least amount of excitement. They decided to ask the preacher if he would go and break the news gently to the man. The preacher went, and gradually led up to the question. He thought it wise to take a side door approach, so he asked him, “Say, Jerry, what do you think you would do if you were to suddenly inherit a million dollars? He said, "Actually I think the first thing I would do is give half of it to the church." The preacher dropped dead. When I speak on the subject of money and giving from the Word, I am always impressed by the vast amount of attention given to the subject in the scriptures. Have you noticed that? So there’s always a ready text from which to preach. A mother wanted to teach her daughter a moral lesson. She gave the little girl a quarter and a dollar for church "Put whichever one you want in the collection plate and keep the other for yourself," she told the girl. When they were coming out of church, the mother asked her daughter which amount she had given. "Well," said the little girl, "I was going to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man in the pulpit said that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I'd be a lot more cheerful if I gave the quarter, so I did." I also try to give careful consideration to the matter of motive and the proper attitudes about giving. That’s one reason this classic text of John 3:16 grabbed my heart in a fresh way. If it’s true that love is the supreme motive for giving, both for God and for man, then that ought to be what we need to teach, right? So here’s my stewardship sermon: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Then give. How much? Oh, you’ll know how much. Your heart, once filled and motivated with all that love for God, will make it clear to you. Yes, you should pay attention to the tithe of the older covenant, and you should listen to the newer testament’s clarion reminders that what you give will determine what you receive. C.S. Lewis said, I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. Peter Marshall on said, Give according to your income, lest God make your income according to your giving. Conclusion Love God, and you’ll remember all the passages you’ve read and all the teachings you’ve heard (and even taught) about the joy of giving, how it’s better to give than to receive and the noble Christian art of sacrificial giving. Love God and all that will come to bear. Love God and you will easily become the kind of giver that 2 Corinthians says God loves—a cheerful giver. Love God, and give. And I won’t have to come at the subject of giving from the perspective of budget shortfall, or sub-Christian pleading or any kind of legalistic, guilt-driven manipulation. God forbid. Let’s write the reciprocal version of John 3:16. For His people loved God so much that they gave spiritually-motivated offerings that freed their hearts from materialism and freed their church to do whatever God called them to do for Him.       [ Back to Top]