God Is Not Done

John 3:14-16 and the Bronze Serpent

Well, please remain standing for the reading of God's Word if you would turn your Bibles to John chapter 3. We'll preach from John 3, 16, but I'll begin reading at verse 14 of John chapter 3. This is Jesus, of course, speaking to Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel.

In verse 14 he says, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God bless that reading and now the proclamation of his Word. Please be seated. It's well said by many commentators and theologians through the years that John 3, 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.

Now that is the thematic statement of the entire fourth gospel. Now that's a bit arguable because there's others that you could place the entire gospel in that schematic for, but this is really at least one of them, one of the most prominent of those verses in this gospel that set the tone for all that follows.

Here's Jesus Christ who Nicodemus came to at night, or he went to Jesus at night, and the teacher of Israel being instructed on the need for rebirth, new birth. He says, Can a man go into a womb a second time just not getting it?

And that whole discussion that most of us are so familiar with. But this afternoon, to encourage us in our prayer, to prepare our hearts for going to the Lord together as we do each Sunday afternoon, just this verse and a simple exposition of it.

I'm going to leave a lot on the table because there's a lot in this verse, could take such a long time to go through. This thematic statement that really sets the tone for everything and has words to speak to us here this day, this afternoon.

You know, I first saw John 3 .16 in writing. It was a long time before I was a Christian. It was at Monday Night Football on TV. Now I wasn't at any of the games, but that was back when Monday Night Football was the only premier football game.

There wasn't two games on Monday night like they have now. There wasn't Thursday night football, which is a version of Sunday night or Monday night, and then there's Sunday night now. Back then it was only Monday Night Football.

That was the premier event. And remember, have you ever seen, you find this easily on YouTube if you want, there were some people who were always able to get this banner behind one of the goalposts and the bleachers there that said John 3 .16.

You seen that? Look it up sometime after church, you'll see that. The old Monday Night Football games, the people would be behind the goalposts, so they paid a lot for those seats, and there's this huge banner, John 3 .16.

I asked my wife what that was, and she's a Christian, it was before I was converted. She says, well it's just the most famous verse in the New Testament, and I knew nothing about it, but there it was, John 3 .16.

Later, when I became a Christian, I began to realize, of course, the importance of it. And the last thing I'll tell you about my experience with John 3 .16, way, way back before we actually get into this message, was right here at this church.

The first time I came to this church in the fall of 1999, Pastor George was still the pastor, and he preached, and as he was preaching, as I was watching things and being a part of things, I thought, I feel like this is the church I should stay at, and of course we did.

But after that first day, I was sitting just about where this gentleman is, and after the final amen, before I stood up, I was surrounded by this forest of these big, heavily girthed, tall, heavily bearded men.

And before they asked me my name, they said, John 3 .16, who's the world? I said, well, my name is Josh. Glad to be here to worship with you. Well, who do you think the world is? I said, well, the world is the world, right?

No, it's the world of the elect. Well, this verse has had that kind of controversy for a long time. The Arminian points to this verse, and he says, well, look, he loved the world, he gave his son that, whoever believes, so all you have to do is believe, exercise your faith.

That really freights this too much, because that's not at all what Jesus is saying. And then the starchy, reformed person answers back, said, no, the world means the world of the elect. That's clear, that's obvious, and that freights it too much on the other side.

Both are wrong. We can take John 3 .16 on its own merits at this point in the gospel. And just for those of us who are reformed and properly have a view of the sovereignty of God, and that God is the only and the sole acting agent in salvation, understand this, that what Jesus said here to Nicodemus and what we're going to take apart really pretty briefly this afternoon, we can take on its own merits exactly as he meant it this early in the gospel.

Now predestination and God's sovereignty and no one can come to the Father unless the Son reveals Him, and no one can come to the Son unless the Father sends Him to the Son. God is absolutely the sole agent in salvation, right?

But here in this gospel, this early, before those theologies are well developed by John and give us that certain and sure foundation for our faith, this early in the gospel we can just take it for what he meant and for who he was talking to and for the author John, the evangelist as we call him, not having developed everything but setting us up for those developments so that when we get to the end of the book we are sure that God has predestined a people and it's a particular people who benefited from Christ's death.

Let's look at this verse then. This afternoon we're going to take it just at face value and we're going to look at what it means to us here in prayer this afternoon. The title of my message is God has not given up.

God Has Not Given Up on Israel

God has not given up. God has not given up on Israel then, and this is really the message to Nicodemus. He's saying you need to be reborn. It's not that God has abandoned, he's given the way that was always meant to be.

All the traditions, the Word of God, the oracles, the prophets, all these things that Israel has had, these precious gifts, Romans 3, what advantage then has a Jew? Much in every way and yet missed the rebirth, the new birth.

Part of the message to Nicodemus then as the teacher of Israel is going to Israel this, the reason you can be reborn is because God has not given up. To say God has not given up it almost says too little because God doesn't give up on something like okay this didn't work and I've got to go back.

God's plans are eternal. They never were not and they never will not come to pass, but God has not given up and he is not finished and this is sort of the message that Nicodemus is to bring back to Israel.

Tell them to be reborn. Tell them to have faith in me. Tell them that God is still working today and that's one of those themes that works throughout this gospel. Jesus told the Pharisees that my father is working and I am working to this day, thus making himself equal to the Father.

What's our context here? Beyond this nighttime conversation and meeting between Nicodemus and Jesus, I started at verse 14 and Jesus clearly takes his work, the thing that the Father sent him for, back to the bronze serpent.

Back to Numbers chapter 20 when the Lord sent those snakes, the serpents, among the people and they bit and many of them died and God told Moses make a bronze serpent and lift it up high and whoever looks upon it will live and not die.

And what does Jesus say? That what is that bronze serpent about? It's about me and the work I was sent to do for the Father. So as the serpent was lifted high and gazed upon with eyes of faith and that brought healing so the Son of Man from heaven will be lifted high so that those look upon him with eyes of faith shall be healed not of viper venom but of sin and of the penalty for it and of eternal perishing.

So God had not then, has not now, given up on the world. He never did. Everlasting to everlasting in all things be they ever so large and dramatic or minuscule and mundane all things are under his direct his sovereign control all designed for and moving towards an exhibition of his glory.

So with that serpent in the background and we'll come back to him or come back to it a bit later. Let's just go quickly through John 3 16 in the way we were taught in grade school, at least I was. Look at who, what, when, where, why, and how about verse 3 16.

We called them the five W's. Who, what, when, where, how, and why. So who is the acting agent here? Who is Jesus talking about in verse 3 16 with that bronze serpent kind of waiting in the background just John 3 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.

The who is clearly God the Father. He's the agent who acts. Jesus spoke of his incarnation pretty often but in John's gospel especially he spoke of having been sent. So what we have here is not just the God the Father sending his son but there's authority there because the father can have authority to send the son.

The son as Jesus when he walked in this world he says so often in the gospel of John he subordinated himself to the Father's will. It's not like sometimes he turned on humanity and did something human.

Other times he turned on divinity and did something miraculous. No, he was one. There was no confusion between his humanity and his deity and yet in his humanity subordinated himself to the Father's will, came to do the Father's will, and so the Father sends the son.

He didn't send you or me or anything like that. He sent his only begotten son. He is the acting agent here. He is the Sovereign One. Now we know from Ephesians chapter 1 and the opening of it that God determined all this before the foundation of the world.

So John is really writing in space and time here about the sending. So the who is God the Father. He's the acting agent. He's the agent of salvation. He's the one who sends his son to bring salvation.

It's all to God's glory. So what? What did he do? Well, we've already talked about it. He sent his son. But let's go back a little bit. He so loved the world. The original language is really close to so love the world that we have in English, but it's like in this manner God loved the world.

Because of this love we could say because of the way God loved the world he did something. Now saying he loved the world, we don't have to dice that up and say okay he loved the elect and the elect only and all the others he hates because he hates sinners every day as the psalmist says.

We don't need to do that here. We can view this as simply what Jesus said. God is looking upon this world, what he created, what he spoke into existence and six times said let there be, let there be. And each time it was good until he made man and it was very good and God rested.

He's looking upon that world he created. That place that is to be our home. We said go forth to subdue the earth, be fruitful and multiply. Ephesians chapter 3 says it's the place he made so that the church would be in existence upon it and that we would then declare the manifold glories of Christ.

Ephesians chapter 3. God looks upon that world and he loved the world. Now that does not mean that he loved every person on the world ubiquitously and promiscuously and said I'm gonna save them all because I love them all.

That's not what it's saying here. We don't need to freight it with all that. He's looking upon that which he made and he loves that which he made because he made it and he makes no mistakes and all that he does is good and because of that world and that love that he has for the world he sent his son to it.

It's as simple as that. He loved the world and he gave his son so the who is God, the what is that he loved and he gave, he loved the world, he gave his son to the world. The when. There's two whens. The first when is about 2 ,000 years ago and that would answer also the where.

Bethlehem. A little bit more than 2 ,000 years ago Jesus was born in Bethlehem. God became flesh and dwelt among us. He became flesh when he was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem about 2 ,000 years ago.

So that's the when and the where I said is in Bethlehem. The other when we've already talked about before all time. There was never a moment when God and the Son and the Spirit did not have this covenant together to effect our salvation.

So God the Father loving, giving about 2 ,000 years ago in the flesh before all time in intent in Bethlehem and the why. Why did he act? Well he acted for love but why? To what purpose? Well the first purpose was to save people.

It says it right there in the verse does it not? It says for God so loved the world in this manner because of this love that he had he sent, he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The why is to save. The why is to take us from the pool of perishing persons to the pool of not perishing. In other words from perishing to salvation. From eternal death to eternal life. Eternal death just as a quick aside if you read in Thessalonians it speaks of eternal dying.

Not dying as you have death at any point. Eternally dying. Eternally in the stages of death but never quite getting there. And this is the kind of perishing that Jesus speaks of here that he came to save people from.

To save people from themselves really. Save us from our sin. But more accurately as R .C. Sproul used to point out what we really need to be really need to be saved from is God. From the wrath of God.

The consequences of our sin. Now back to that serpent which is part of the why. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The word must is from the Greek D. D-E-I if you want to transliterate it. And it has the flavor of something that is necessary. Something that really must be done. As Moses lifted up the serpent so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

Let's put the emphasis back so must the Son of Man be lifted up. There's no other name given to men under heaven by which they must be saved. And there's no other way to be saved other than the cross of Jesus Christ and faith therein.

That on that cross he died for your sins. There's no other appropriation we can make other than it's like in Galatians 2 19 the speaking of the Son of Man the Son of God excuse me the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

And so must here does have some freight to it. It does have some some that we can load upon it. Must be lifted up. Must be lifted up because it's the Father's will. Must be lifted up because it's the only way you can not perish but have eternal life.

By Jesus by his sacrifice by his death by faith in him. That's why it must be lifted up. There's no salvation there's salvation no one else no other name under heaven given among men by which you must be saved only Jesus.

It must be lifted up because it's the Father's will. Then I said Hebrews 10 7 behold I've come to do your will O God as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. John 12 27 and 28 Jesus speaks of the same kind of imperative when he says now my now is my soul troubled and what shall I say father save me from this hour but for this purpose I've come to this hour.

Father glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven I have glorified it and I will glorify it. The Son of Man must be lifted up to affect our salvation. The Son of Man must be lifted up because it's God's will.

The Son of Man must be lifted up because by that God is glorified. Now it's the Son of Man glorified when the cross was now rising up out of the ground as it were and becoming more and more prominent in the end of his days on earth.

He told Pilate you say that I'm a king for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who's of the truth listens to my voice. Must. Must be lifted up because that is the truth of God in Christ.

That's the truth of God by the prophets who came before me. That's the truth of God that the law was to point us to. It's the truth of God that everything in Israel's history and all the past was to have a trajectory towards.

Jesus Christ his perfect life his sacrifice for our sin the cross upon which he bore our sin. Must. Also because of love. See when when John writes for God so loved the world that word for means as a consequence as a logical consequence or ramification of what came before here's what I have to say so when he says for God so loved the world the for then relates up to those first two verses we read back to the serpent for that reason stated because of that serpent because he was lifted up because he was lifted up and people looked upon the serpent and were killed healed of the poison because of that because God loved so much that he kept them from perishing in the wilderness.

For that reason the Son of Man must make the ultimate fulfillment of what that pointed to of what that really meant. It's after the serpent in the wilderness it's after that that we get for God so loved the world the love of God now poured into the hearts of his people.

The other why is to save people from perishing as we've said we note that to believe in Jesus means to not perish. The Greek has in the word where we have the word that the Greek has a more powerful word mean the purpose for this the intent behind it as a stronger word than just that.

But it's because they in order that for this very purpose so that men should not perish unless God's purposes were somehow thwarted which they never will be. But unless they were people were have been and are being saved.

And so we could say that God has not given up. You see God sent Jesus to save people. God sent Jesus to fulfill the Old Testament. And God has sent Jesus's Word today he's ascended he's at the father's right hand.

And when he was there when he first went there who did he send. He sent men the twelve apostles to found the church upon the foundation of the death burial and resurrection of himself. And today is God done.

No today he has churches. He has us. He has Saints like you and me ordinary people carrying on that evangelistic fervor. That's what it means when he says that they not may not perish. That we declare his word that we bring forth his salvation.

We'll pray in a little while in just a few minutes Lord willing in just a couple minutes we'll stop more pray. We're gonna pray for the ministries of this church that we declare that you are going to perish unless you believe in this one and have eternal life.

And here are the two choices. They're that stark perish life. Jesus came and declared that he during his entire life he sent the Apostles after his death burial resurrection and ascension sent the Apostles.

And now as a worthy Apostle sent us because they're the ones who gave us this completed Word of God by which we have the words of life. Why the image of the serpent that leads to this most famous of New Testament verses.

Because serpents were killing those people like in Genesis 3 a serpent came and brought death. It's like saying when they lift up the serpent the bronze serpents like look at what you've chosen for them back then it was.

Look with regret look with repentance. But look with eyes of faith. Because Moses if you look at the serpent you will live. Who would believe that. Logically you couldn't. But with faith they were saved.

They're safe from the poison they're safe from the adders or whatever those serpents were. Now look now look not a serpent that brings death and eternal perishing but a Savior who brings life. So the bronze serpent because of love for God so loved that people that he had drawn out of Egypt even with their grumbling and complaining.

Now in Jesus for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. He gave his son. Abraham was told to give his son which he was ready to do but God didn't take it.

God didn't take Isaac. We gave a substitute for him just as he should take us and yet gave a substitute for us in Jesus Christ. So God hadn't given up on Israel. He sent Jesus to save to save people. To explain to them to explain to the teacher of Israel the truth that he always under that he had all the all the groundwork for all the foundation for but didn't see.

Jesus was working after he ascended on high. He sent the Apostles. Jesus is working today in and through the church and this means something with this we will close. That means he is working today when Jesus sold the Pharisees and John that my father is working and I am working to this day brethren by his spirit.

He continues that work. He continues that work in and with all of us in you individually where the Holy Spirit dwells and in us as a church as a congregated people he's still working. He's bringing you through hard times.

Perhaps he's giving you some easier times in all these things making you more and more like Jesus Christ. And if you don't believe in him then this is a message also for repentance that God sent one way to himself and one way to himself.

Because there's only two choices other than coming to him by faith in his son Jesus Christ perish or eternal life. Know that God is continuing this work of salvation. Know that God is still saving people today.

Know that you and I have no idea who the elect is. So let us as God so loved the world and gave his son ubiquitously we could say promiscuously. So also we need to declare this good news that we have.

And so also we need to pray with fervency when we close and go to the Lord in prayer together. Amen. So let me pray Heavenly Father. I thank you Father for the love of God that you showed in sending your son.

And for the love of God that is poured out in our hearts. I pray father that as we proceed that we would be confident in that love. That we would know that you father sent your son to save us and that we were saved by Jesus Christ.

When he says finished it was finished indeed. So we are indeed saved the Lord. May we be those who declare this with with courage and with clarity the Lord that Jesus Christ would be glorified that we would bring people to look upon him and be saved by having faith in him father faith that only you can give.

So we continue to accomplish this great work that Jesus started even through us. We ask in his name amen.