Love the World Like God

SERMON NOTES:

Nicodemus asks Jesus what he must do to have eternal life?

Jesus responds you must be born again

N says he doesn’t understand what being born again means.

J explains you must be born spiritually.

That’s where today’s text picks up as J fleshes out his answer

In West Virginia, one of the members of my church was 92 when I first became her pastor. She died just four weeks shy of her 100th birthday. She had alzhiemer’s, and every time I visited her I heard the same stories over and over again—stories about her life as the young widow who raised 9 children after her husband died. When I visited I always had to tell her my name. Sometimes, She remembered that I was her pastor, sometimes not. But every chance she had, she would recite John 3:16 for me.

I preached that verse at her funeral, because it was so important a part of her life. And she made it very important to me, too, just by repeating it—often.

Snake on a Stake

Jesus tells Nicodemus that he will soon be lifted up on a stake, too—the cross

People who believed in him would have eternal life.

But how did it begin, with God’s love.

God sent his Son

God’s Son brought God’s light into the world

God’s light is love

What did this mean for Jesus?

Jesus would go to the cross so people could believe

Jesus would give up everything—even his own life—for the ones he loves

There is darkness in this world, too.

Hatred is darkness

But we are called to be salt and light for the world:

We are called to love—God, each other, the others!

In the city of Chicago, one cold, dark night, a blizzard was setting in. A little boy was selling newspapers on the corner, the people were in and out of the cold. The little boy was so cold that he wasn't trying to sell many papers. He walked up to the policeman and said, "Mister, you wouldn't happen to know where a poor boy could find a warm place to sleep tonight would you? You see, I sleep in a box up around the corner there and down the alley and it's awful cold in there, of a night. Sure you be nice to have a warm place to stay." The policeman looked down at the little boy and said, "You go down the street to that big white house and you knock on the door. When they come out the door you just say John 3:16 and they will let you in." So he did, he walked up the steps to the door, and knocked on the door and a lady answered. He looked up and said, "John 3:16." The lady said, "Come on in, Son." She took him in and she sat him down in a split bottom rocker in front of a great big old fireplace and she went off. He sat there for a while, and thought to himself, "John 3:16.... I don't understand it, but it sure makes a cold boy warm." Later she came back and asked him "Are you hungry?" He said, "Well, just a little. I haven't eaten in a couple of days and I guess I could stand a little bit of food." The lady took him in the kitchen and sat him down to a table full of wonderful food. He ate and ate until he couldn't eat any more. Then he thought to himself "John 3:16.... Boy, I sure don't understand it, but it sure makes a hungry boy full." She took him upstairs to a bathroom and a huge bathtub filled with warm water and he sat there and soaked for a while. As he soaked, he thought to himself, "John 3:16...I sure don't understand it, but it sure makes a dirty boy clean. You know, I've not had a bath, a real bath, in my whole life. The only bath I ever had was when I stood in front of that big old fire hydrant as they flushed it out." The lady came in and got him, and took him to a room and tucked him into a big old feather bed and pulled the covers up around his neck and kissed him goodnight and turned out the lights. As he laid in the darkness and looked out the window at the snow coming down on that cold night he thought to himself, "John 3:16.... I don't understand it, but it sure makes a tired boy rested." The next morning she came back up and took him down again to that same big table full of food. After he ate, she took him back to that same big old split bottom rocker in front of the fireplace and she took a big old Bible and sat down in front of him and looked up at him and she asked, "Do you understand John 3:16?" He said, "No, Ma'am, I don't. The first time I ever heard it was last night when the policeman told me to use it." She opened the Bible to John 3:16, and she began to explain to him about Jesus. Right there in front of that big old fireplace, he gave his heart and life to Jesus. He sat there and thought, "John 3:16. I don't understand it, but it sure makes a lost boy feel safe." You know, I have to confess I don't understand it either, how God would be willing to send His Son to die for me, and how Jesus would agree to do such a thing. I don't understand it either, but it sure makes life worth living!

Dwight L. Moody had the words, "God is love," written above his pulpit. When he first began preaching, his zeal for God and his hatred for sin kept him from feeling the full force of these words. Then he preached that God was angry with the wicked and stood behind them with a drawn sword, ready to cut down sinners if they did not repent. In a measure, this is true. God loves the sinner, but He hates the sin. Unless we depart from sin, we shall perish with it; but God would have his love come first always. A young Englishman taught Moody to preach the love of God. When Moody first visited England, he met Harry Moorehouse. The people called him "the boy preacher." One day Moorehouse told Moody that he would like to go with him to Chicago and preach in his church. Moody said he looked at the beardless young fellow and decided he was too young to preach; so he did not let him know what boat he sailed on. But not long after, he received a letter stating that Moorehouse had arrived in the United States and that he would come out to Chicago and preach for him if he wished. Moody wrote him a very cold answer, telling him that if he came west, to call on him. In a few days he received another letter, telling him that Moorehouse would arrive in Chicago on Thursday. Moody did not know what to do. He had to be in another city over Friday and Saturday. But, finally, after thinking it over a long time and seeing no way out of the difficulty, he told his church officers that a young preacher from England was to arrive on Thursday and they had better invite him to speak the two evenings he was away. They too, were afraid that the young stranger might spoil the interest; but Moody said, "Well, try him." When he returned, about the first question he asked his wife was how the young preacher got on. His wife said: "He has preached both nights from John 3:16. I think you will like him. He preaches a bit differently from the way you do." "How is that?" Moody asked. "He tells the people that God loves them," replied his wife. Moody said: "He is wrong; but I will ask him to speak again tonight so I can hear him myself." "I think you will agree with him after you hear him," Mrs. Moody said. Moody went down to the church, and he noticed everybody had Bibles. "My friends," began Moorehouse, "if you will turn to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse you will find my text." He preached seven sermons from that one text! The last night Moorehouse went into the pulpit, every eye was upon him, wondering what text he would preach from. He began: "Friends, I have been hunting all day for a new text, but I can not find one so good as the old one; so we will go back to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse." Moody said he could never forget the closing words of that night's sermon: "My friends, for a whole week I have been trying to tell you how much God loves you; but I can not do it with this poor, stammering tongue. If I could borrow Jacob's ladder, climb up to heaven and ask Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, to tell me how much God loves sinners, all he could say would be, 'God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'" Moody was convinced, and changed his manner of preaching. Now he preached that God was behind the sinner with love instead of a sword, and that, in rejecting God, the sinner was running away from the God of love.

When it comes to contemporary heroes of the Christian faith, we are familiar with names like Billy Graham. But what about Edward Kimble or Mordecai Ham?

Edward Kimble was a shoe salesman who worked alongside a guy named Dwight. Edward shared the gospel with Dwight, and Dwight accepted Christ. It was 1858, and Dwight’s last name was Moody. We know him as D. L. Moody, who was one of the greatest evangelists in history.

Years later when Moody was preaching, a pastor named Frederick D. Meyer was deeply stirred, and as a result, he went into his own nationwide preaching ministry. On one occasion when Meyer was preaching, a college student named J. Wilbur Chapman heard him and accepted Christ. He went out and began to share the gospel, and he employed a young baseball player named Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday ended up being the greatest evangelist of his generation.

When Billy Sunday preached the gospel in Charlotte, North Carolina, it was such a great meeting that he was invited back. But when he couldn’t be there, Sunday recommended a preacher named Mordecai Ham. Ham went to Charlotte and preached, but not many people responded to his invitation to accept Christ. But on one of the last nights, a tall, lanky boy who worked on the local dairy farm walked forward. Everyone knew him as Billy Frank, and we know him today as Billy Graham.

So Edward Kimble reached D. L. Moody, who touched Frederick Meyer, who reached Wilbur Chapman, who helped Billy Sunday, who reached businessmen in Charlotte, who invited Mordecai Ham, who ultimately reached Billy Graham. And it all began with the simple witness of Edward Kimble.

Every one of us can make a difference for the kingdom of God. What is He calling you to do?