Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Danger*

August 3, 2008

John 3:16

 

We’re finally at John 3:16 in our ongoing study of the book of John.

This one verse contains the essence of the whole gospel.

This precious and well-known verse speaks of the divine love which moved God to provide salvation for the world through His Son.

Whole books have been written on this one verse.

Max Lucados’ book, “3:16”, is published as a 26 word parade of hope, beginning with God, ending with life.

If you know nothing of the Bible start here.

If you know everything in the Bible, return here.

John 3:16 is an essential part of Jesus night-time conversation with Nicodemus, the Judean Torah scholar who has credentials – a dedicated religious leader.

He has clout – he occupies one of the 71 supreme court seats of the auspicious Sanhedrin.

But even he has questions.

So, as Max Lucado says in his book, “he comes at night so his colleagues won’t know.

They wouldn’t understand.

But Nicodemus can’t wait until they do.

So he knocks and the noisy room of wharf workers and tax collectors, unaccustomed to the highbrow world of a school, becomes silent… Jesus motions for this guest to sit … He makes no mention of Nicodemus’ VIP status, good intentions, or academic credentials….. because they don’t matter.

Nicodemus begins with what he knows, “Rabbi, we know You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs you do unless God is with him.

(Jn 3:2).

We listen for a kindred salutation from Jesus.

We expect what Nicodemus expected, some hospitable chitchat.

None comes.

Jesus response?

Your best won’t do!

Your works don’t work!

Your finest efforts don’t mean squat.

For, unless you are born again, you can’t see what God is up to.

Newborn hearts are born of heaven.

You can’t wish, earn, or create one.

Nicodemus is into self-fix (and aren’t we all?) Jesus, on the other hand, introduces God-fix: not works of man, but a work born of God.

A work of divine love.”

I’ve prepared four messages on John 3:16, so I feel like I’ve fallen short.

But before we get into John 3:16, I want to begin with the April 22nd reading from Henry Blackaby’s “Experiencing God Day-by-Day”.

/Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a rainstorm//.”/—1

Kings 18:41

Success can distract you as you seek to follow God's will.

Elijah's primary assignment was to announce when a drought would begin and end (1 Kings 17:1).

God had told him to proclaim to king Ahab that the drought was an act of judgment upon a people who worshiped idols rather than God.

In the middle of Elijah's assignment, a spectacular thing happened.

Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and called fire down from heaven, putting hundreds of priests of Baal to death.

This was one of the most awesome displays of God's power recorded in Scripture.

Elijah could easily have focused strictly on that event.

Fire falling from heaven is much more spectacular than a rainstorm!

When something spectacular happens, we can easily be sidetracked.

If Elijah lived today, he might have begun a “Calling Down Fire from Heaven” ministry!

The dramatic is far more appealing to us than obedience to the mundane.

Let me repeat that because it says a lot about the human condition, The dramatic is far more appealing to us than obedience to the mundane.

Destroying hundreds of Baal's prophets would appear to be a climactic victory for any prophet of God.

Yet Elijah persisted in his assignment.

He announced the coming rain.

This had been his primary message, and he delivered it.

If you aren't careful, you may become so distracted by the successes you experience that you never complete what God originally assigned you to do.

Will your success today cause you to disobey tomorrow?

Do you dwell on past miracles?

God asks us to dwell on His Son, Jesus; the one we read about in John 3:16.

If you have your Bible with you, please turn to John 3:16 and we’ll read today’s key passage.

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

/

I want us to focus on the words of Jesus in John 3:16.

I invite you to turn there with me.

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

How many of you, at one time or another, learned John 3:16 by heart?

When our youngest daughter began AWANA at age 4, she had to memorize this Scripture, but said it a little differently: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only forgotten Son.”

I imagine many of you have had similar experiences with your children.

I challenge you to memorize John 3:16 in the next month.

If you can only memorize one verse of Scripture, make it John 3:16.

One of the reasons this verse is so widely memorized and so deeply loved is that it is such a remarkably full summary of the gospel.

I am dividing it into four parts that make a natural presentation of the gospel.

Four "D's."

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The first "D" is for DANGER.

The verse talks about the danger that we are in without Christ—" . . .

that we might not perish."

All human beings are in danger of perishing, which is not merely dying, but is the opposite of eternal life.

Eternal perishing.

#.

The second "D" talks about the design of God to rescue us from perishing, namely, the design of love.

/"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." /It's the love of God giving his Son in incarnation and death that rescues us from perishing.

There is no other way to heaven.

Acts 4:12 says/, "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."/

#.

The third "D", the duty that we must fulfill if we are going to be a part of the love of God in rescuing sinners from perishing.

Our duty is to be faithful, trusting, or believing in the Son that God sent.

/" . . .

that whoever believes on him might not perish."

/

#.

Finally, the fourth "D", the destiny of those who believe.

Our destiny is eternal life with God/.

" . . .

that whoever believes on him might not perish, but have eternal life."

/

Not everything important to our faith is mentioned in this verse (the glorifying of God; our election, our calling, our regeneration, our justification, our sanctification, the atoning death of Christ, etc.), but what is here, in John 3:16, is so basic and so precious and so powerful in its straightforwardness that not many verses are more important as summaries of the gospel.

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The danger: perishing.

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The design: love.

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The duty: faith.

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The destiny: eternal life.

We will spend a week with each one of these D’s, and we will barely scratch the surface.

Each of these four D’s is inexhaustible in greatness and importance for your life.

They are ten thousand thousand thousand times more important than the Roughriders beating the Bombers.

And I plead with you to pray with me that God would awaken in all of us, and many who do not have eternal life—that He awaken us to the immensity and the glory and the importance and the seriousness and the fearful and wonderful supremacy of what is revealed in John 3:16.

That it would be real to us—more real than what we see and hear and touch and taste.

All great men have had their favorite texts; but this has been called "Everybody's text."

Herein for every simple heart is the very essence of the gospel.

This text tells us certain great things.

\\                                                                                                   (i) It tells us that the initiative in all salvation lies with God.

Sometimes Christianity is presented in such a way that it sounds as if God had to be pacified, as if he had to be persuaded to forgive.

Sometimes men speak as if they would draw a picture of a stern, angry, unforgiving God and a gentle, loving, forgiving Jesus.

Sometimes men present the Christian message in such a way that it sounds as if Jesus did something which changed the attitude of God to men from condemnation to forgiveness.