2.7.10a God's Love John 3.16 2.2.2022

1. The first potential mistake is that I'm going to preach about love 12 days until Valentine's day. Valentine's Day celebrates romantic love. For many people romantic love is the ideal. In fact, for many it is the only kind of love that they really understand. Romantic love is certainly the benchmark for our culture. Many teen-age boys are thinking about purchasing their first Valentine's Day gift for their first real valentine. Many husbands will wrack their brains for the next two weeks and make a last-minute default purchase of candy or flowers.

2. My second potential mistake is that I wish to discuss John 3.16

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

You know this verse. Why would I even attempt such a thing as preaching something so elementary, so well known, so simple? Well, I'm currently working my way through John. On January 16 John 3.16 was embedded in the longer text for that Sunday. I did not really highlight the verse then and had much more to say about it.

God's love is, nearly inexhaustible

and this verse,

for all the times we quote it from memory,

is not always fully explained.

It has become almost a motto.

We don’t explore it

or try and get our minds around it.

Consequently, our appreciation for this verse is often about as complex as when we first memorized it.

Engage: What Can one say about love that has not already been said?

A lot, actually.

When I say the word "love" what do you think about?

Your spouse?

Kids?

Parents?

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase "God's Love?"

Expand: For something so significant we take it for granted.

We conceptualize God's love in the familiar terms we use to understand varieties of human love, despite the huge difference.

God's love is primarily a theological category.

Love tells us something about God's nature.

Love also reminds us that because of our sinfulness

we are "unlovely." We don't deserve God's love,

He does not ask if we want it,

and we benefit from it even though we may not understand it.

Excite: I hope to remedy that shortcoming, at least a little bit tonight. To understand the impact of God's love means understanding both its theory and practice.

Explore:

There is no truer statement about God than His love.

Explain: Jesus nails down some important details for us about God's love.

Body of Sermon:

1. Loves Allure is Universal.

Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον

This is odd for John. In his writings "the world" is almost always a negative term. The world is opposed to Jesus and filled with darkness. Yet the scope of God's love, its horizon is endless.

If we were to use a contemporary term we might say "God's love is cosmic." The entire universe, as fallen as it is, is the object of His love.

And we, are the creatures at the center of the Bible's redemption story and the ultimate recipients of that love.

Next Jesus tells us that

2. Loves Appeal is Personal

ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν

It is, of course, cliche to say that God gave His best, His only Son, to redeem us. It bears repeating.

My wife the illustrious Mrs. Beckman is a maker. Crochet is her medium. She is really, really good. She has used her own patterns and has used those created by others. But when Mrs. Beckman crochets it is personal. It comes from her heart as well as her hands.

The allure of God's love is that no fallen creature is exempt. The appeal is that He Himself acted. His Son. His gift. His love.

Because the person of God reaches to each of us

3. Loves Application is Individual

ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν

God's love reaches to everyone. God's love extends to anyone. God's love makes us all Someone. God's love excludes no one. God's love is for You.

God's love is accepted when we respond in faith. His personal gift extends to His people; each individual who shares in His personally extended act of love.

Jesus is the greatest thing God has done. Jesus is the heart of redemption. There is no other plan.

4. Loves Advantage is Eternal.

μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ’ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

John quotes Jesus describing this eternal advantage negatively, what does not happen, and positively, what does happen.

When we knowingly accept God's love through faith, we are no longer in danger of facing death for our sins. (Shall not perish)

When we knowingly accept God's love through faith, we can then have eternal life. (may be having eternal life.)

Let me dare to repeat myself. Eternal life is found in the Son of God, given to gain our redemption. There will be no one in heaven who gets there in any other way than Jesus. Those who died in faith under the Old Covenant share the redemption won by Jesus. The cross is the place where the battle was joined. The empty tomb is the eternal monument of God's redeeming love.

Shut Down:

One of those odd coincidences in our English versions of scripture is how closely 1 John 3.16 tracks with John 3.16.

1 John 3:16 ESV

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

This links our reception of God's love to the ethical mandate of believers to extend God's love, as we see it in Jesus to others.

I am troubled by the number of Christians who, having gladly accepted God's love, feel like they can cut off the supply. We are surrounded by someone's in need of love. In your neighborhoods there are people who feel like nobody's and it is the job of the Church to extend the inclusive, redeeming love of Christ to whoever we meet that they may become somebody’s embraced by the nail-scarred hands of Jesus.