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I learned something the other day. How many of you have a Kindle? A few, the proud, the Kindle owners. If you have a Kindle or a Kindle-like device, it's interesting because if you download books from Amazon on your Kindle, you know, you can basically, a Kindle is a digital reader, you know, you download the program or you download the books in there and then you have, you know, you can carry around dozens or hundreds of books and just be able to read whatever you want, you know, which is kind of nice.
But here's something probably you don't know or you didn't know until I'm about to tell you. You can mark up your books in Kindle. You can underline things. And when you do, guess who finds out about it?
The IRS, that's right. No, no, that's not right. Amazon .com finds out about it. I don't know why they track it, but they do. They know what you underline in your book. So, one enterprising theologian started looking at, now you have to do a lot of, I guess, underlining or I don't know what his source was, but he compiled a list of the top seven underlined passages in the Bible.
Top seven. I don't know why he stopped at seven, you know, seven days, I don't know. Top seven. Number seven, Genesis 127. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
Number seven. Number six, personal favorite, Romans 8 .28. We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Number five, an oft misquoted verse, also number five most underlined, Jeremiah 29 .11.
I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Number four, Matthew 6 .34. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Number three, also from Matthew 6, right before it, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Number two, Philippians 4 .13, often used to explain why football players are allowed to break tackles, run for touchdowns.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Just wrong. But number one, what do you think the number one, I mean do I even, it's like do I even have to speak its name? Yeah, this is the placard, this is the billboard, this is the front of everybody's mind, this John 3 .16.
Is there a more well-known verse in the Bible? Probably not. School kids can cite it. Probably some preschool kids can cite it. The question is, ultimately, how well do you know that verse? You say, well, everybody knows it.
Everyone understands that verse. Well, do they? Do you? Can you explain the verse in context? Open your Bibles to John 3. A little bit of review to kind of catch us up, sort of set up what we're going to be looking at this morning.
We know that there are four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and they're each written with a different emphasis. I mean, today we would, we would only understand it this way, you know, how can you write hundreds of books about Abraham Lincoln?
Well, because you emphasize different aspects of his life or different eras of his life or different, or you maybe have a different take on what he did or didn't do. How do you write, you know, dozens or hundreds of books on Napoleon and all these different people?
The same thing here, four different Gospels, four different perspectives, four different ways of viewing Jesus, of emphasizing different aspects about him. Matthew wrote his Gospel to stress the kingship of Jesus.
That's why he starts with his genealogy, to show that he was the rightful heir to the throne of David. Mark wrote his Gospel to stress the servanthood of Christ. He says that Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.
Luke wrote his Gospel to stress the humanity of Jesus. How fitting that Luke, the physician, would discuss his real physical, actual humanity, fully God and yet fully man. And so those three Gospels are written early in the church age and then several decades later, we have the Gospel of John written.
And John wrote this Gospel to emphasize the deity of Christ, that is, different aspects of what actually defines him as God. We'd read even in John 1 .1 that in the beginning, you know, echoes of Genesis 1, that Jesus was with the Father that ultimately Jesus is the creator and sustainer of all life.
We would see that he is the performer of miracles, doing things that only God himself could do. So we have four Gospels, each with a unique emphasis, yet they're equally true and equally able to save because they are equally the inspired Word of God, human writers, superintended by the Holy Spirit.
And yet John writes in a distinctive way, the Apostle, the beloved Apostle John writes in a distinctive way. He tells us not only that Jesus was ever existing and the creator, but that he came at the Father's direction and left heaven and took on an additional nature as man.
And when he began his public ministry, he gathered the disciples and then they were present when he performed his first sign, which was turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana or at Cana. After that, he cleansed the temple and he performed other signs which are not detailed for us, but those signs caused some who saw those to believe in him.
But it's interesting that they didn't believe savingly. How do we know that? Because one of them and the first one that we meet is Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. He's a Pharisee and he's described as the teacher of Israel, the preeminent teacher of Israel, the one to whom you would address religious questions if you had them.
He was the expert. He was the real Bible answer man. But it's through him that we get to see the extent of the belief of this group of Jews who saw these signs and are said to believe. He tells Jesus that he knows that he's a teacher come from God.
But that hardly equates to saving faith or as John writes in his purpose statement in John 20, 31, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Well, Nicodemus didn't believe that, not yet anyway.
And so as we come to John chapter 3, I'm going to read for context purposes verses 7 through 17. And again, this is the interaction of Jesus with Nicodemus. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.
The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be?
Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things. Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him, that is in the son of man, 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. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Now this morning, I want to draw your attention to four dimensions, four dimensions of God's love drawn from John 3, 16, so that you will believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
My purpose is John's purpose, and this sermon is four dimensional. We have four dimensions, and every one of them starts with a D, so it's 4D. The first D, first dimension, the degree of amazing love, the degree of amazing love, just the first word for, that first word points us back to what?
It's a preposition that points us back to, you know, it's actually the first two words in the Greek are for thus, for so loved God the world, that's how it reads. Well in what way, we have to look back to verses 14 and 15 to understand that this is the way that God loved the world.
So again, looking back to 14 and 15, 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. This is a reference back to Numbers 21, if you were here several Sunday evenings ago, I covered this.
I want to briefly just kind of recap that so we get where we're going here this morning. In Numbers 21, you don't have to turn there, but the people of Israel freed from Egypt, and they're out in the wilderness, and they get pretty unhappy, and they start complaining, and as a result of their complaining, in Numbers 21 verse 6, we would read this, that Yahweh the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
Well can you doubt for a second that God had a right to be angry, that his wrath against Israel was justified? After all, if we consider that he'd chosen them out of all the nations of the world, and then he had sent them into Egypt, why?
To save them from a famine, and then brought them out of slavery, and here they were complaining against Moses, his spokesman, his prophet, and him. He had the right, if he wanted to, to utterly destroy Israel, but they repented, and he didn't.
He was their covenant God. Again and again, he would grant them deliverance, and he did so here in verse 8 of Numbers 21, and we would read this, and the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, that is, the serpent on the pole, shall live.
Imagine the faith that would take. If you get bit, you just look at that pole, look at the serpent on that pole, and you won't die. Verse 9, so Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent, and live, just as God said.
And this is the example, this is the illustration that Jesus gives Nicodemus. Just as, at that time, if you were bit by a serpent, because of God's righteous judgment against you, you had to look at the serpent on the pole in faith, right?
Why else would you do it? If you said, well that's dumb, I'm not going to look at that serpent on the pole, then guess what? You died. But if you looked at the serpent, you would live, and in that same way, Christ said that he was going to be raised up.
Now in chapter 3, backing up just a little bit further, back in John, in order to get to heaven, one must be, Jesus tells Nicodemus, born again, which our Lord equates with being born of the Holy Spirit.
It's a sovereign act by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit must cause you to be born again before you can believe. If it were not so, the Lord would have pled with Nicodemus to just generate some faith.
Nicodemus, believe. Nicodemus, pray this prayer. Nicodemus, won't you please believe? But he doesn't do that. Instead he says, look, something has to happen to you. So with that as background and understanding, the for, again, it's really for thus, or for in this way, God loves it.
It provides a picture of what God does. He provides a means for forgiveness for the sins of his people, just as he did with Israel. He's going to provide for others this opportunity to be saved, and not just physically, but spiritually.
Jesus says in the same way that the Israelites were spared by looking at the serpent, so will those be spared who look upon him when he is lifted up. John tells us that this is the depth with which the Father loves his people.
He acts. He does something. And only those who look upon Christ in faith will be saved. There is no other way. Again, we run into the exclusivity of Christianity. There's only one way to heaven. And the construction of verses 14 and 15 is such that the purpose and plan of Jesus being lifted up is explained.
It is God's decree. And we're going to see this construction in verse 16. There's a purpose statement. And what do I mean by a purpose statement? In verse 15 it says, that whoever believes that, the that there, we're going to see that same that in verse 16.
It's not just chance that causes people to believe. It is the purpose, and I'll explain that in just a moment. It's the purpose of God's, as sure as the sun rises in the east, that's how sure the salvation of believers is.
God sets his affection on those he has chosen, and he never fails to bring about their salvation. He doesn't lose one. Not one is taken out of his hand. He gathers all of his sheep. The number of analogies is endless in scripture.
And what John does in verse 16 is explain verses 14 and 15. In other words, he goes about it in another way. That's our first D, our first dimension, the second dimension, the deity of amazing love. The deity of amazing love.
Who is this God? For God so loved the world. God is love. 1 John 4, 8 through 10, very familiar. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that is among believers, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
Verse 10, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us believers and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. By his very nature, God is love. Now, if we were going to talk about the attributes, we could certainly talk about the righteousness of God, the justice of God.
He's fully just. We could talk about his omniscience, his omnipotence. And we could talk about his holiness. Certainly he is holy, holy, holy, but holiness doesn't just mean separation from sin, although that's true.
It means there's an other quality to all of his other attributes. He's holy. He's above our comprehension in his justice, in his omnipresence, in his omniscience, and in his love. When we think of his holiness, we ought to be all the more amazed by his love.
Why? Because he can't be in the presence of sin, and yet what does he gather to himself? The good people, the spotless people, the righteous people. No. No, he does everything the opposite of what we would do.
Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 5. I want you to see one thing in particular here in Romans chapter 5, verses 6 to 8. For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He died while we were still sinners.
He died for us. He gave himself up for us. But look at that. In verse 6, at the end of verse 6, it says Christ died for the ungodly. At the end of verse 8, Christ died for us. Well, it's not like we're a superset.
We're not above the ungodly. We are the ungodly. Christ died for us when there was nothing good about us. In fact, in that context, we would also read that we were what? The friends of God? His enemies.
Quickly turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 26 to 30, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.
Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak, that word again, weak, to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
I read that. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus.
Because of my wisdom, I'm in Christ Jesus. Because of my professional faith, I'm in Christ Jesus. Because of my whatever, no, no. Verse 30, because of him, you are in Christ Jesus. God didn't choose the smartest, those who were in the best positions in life, those who possessed physical beauty.
He didn't go, I'm going to take all the best and leave the remnants and they can just be on their own. He chose the opposite. Why? For his glory. So that on judgment day, no one will brag. Everyone will bow the knee.
Why? Because they will be amazed at the love and the grace of God. God is love and his love effectually works his will. So we've seen our first dimension, the degree of amazing love. Second dimension, the deity of amazing love.
And our third dimension, the depth of amazing love. For God so loved the world. One man describes so loved this way, in such an infinite degree and in such a transcendently glorious manner. We can't really even conceive how great God's love is, but it's also love in action.
Because that's what love does. If your husband or wife or your mom or dad, whoever says, I love you, and they never do anything other than say I love you, you don't believe them. God loves in action. He acts on behalf of those he loves.
And in fact, so loved here, the tense of this verb insists on a timelessness, meaning that this love was in action before time began, before eternity was. In fact, we get a bit of a picture of the love of God back in John chapter 1 verses 14 to 18.
Again, familiar verses, listen. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness about him, that is John the Baptist, and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.
John the Baptist testifying to the eternality of Christ. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known.
Jesus represents the full condescending love of God toward us. He left the glory of heaven, the fellowship of the father, the perfect communion with the father and spirit, that we might know the grace of God, that we might know the fullness of the truth of God.
That's love. He came in love. So that's a description of his love. Let's look at those whom he loves. What does it mean when we see that God loves the world? Now, we have to put ourselves in the mindset of a first century Jew and say, well, what would this mean?
Well, first of all, we need to understand that no Jewish theologian of the time, no rabbi, no teacher would have had any notion of the love of God stretching beyond Israel, beyond the Jewish people. After all, the Old Testament told them that he chose them out of all the nations of the world, and that no matter how unfaithful they were, he was faithful to them.
But there's no notion in the Old Testament of God setting his affection upon others, and so this would be a foreign concept to them. Now, some will insist, and so my point there is that this would be mind-blowing to a Jew to read this.
God so loved the world. How can that be? Now, there are some today who insist that this verse indicates that God loves all men equally. There are a few problems. I mean, even if we just look at verse 17, if he loves, if the world means all men equally, then in order that the world might be saved through him means that everyone's saved.
Even in verse 16, it might mean that everyone's saved. That's not what it means. We see that only believers will gain eternal life. We see that in verses 15, 16, and 17. If God loves everyone equally, why do only some gain eternal life?
And some say, well, that's easy, because they believed. They exercised their free will, and they chose to believe. Well, we've already seen Jesus' teaching and the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit in causing spiritual life.
That's what it means to be born again. The theological term is regeneration. So we have to ask ourselves, well, why would someone need regeneration if they're perfectly capable of choosing to believe in the first place?
Why would they need to be born again? Why would they need to be regenerated? And again, that's not how Jesus presents it. He says that it is something that is done to you. He says you must be born again.
Nicodemus is puzzled by that, and he says, listen, it's a work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit blows where it wants. The wind blows where it wants, and you don't know the source of it. You don't know where it's going.
You don't know anything about it. It's the same with the Holy Spirit. You don't control the Holy Spirit of God. You don't control Him any more than you control the wind. Some will say, but doesn't the love of God, doesn't the fact that God is love, doesn't that overrule everything?
And I say, yes, it does on those upon whom He sets His affection. The Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates those whom He will. The Holy Spirit is putting the love of God into action by causing the objects of His affection to be born again.
Those who are born again are those who believe. Let's put it another way. Are there any believers, or I'm sorry, are there any unbelievers who are born again? And the answer is no. When you're born again, you believe.
And if it's a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, which clearly Jesus teaches it is in John chapter 3, to be born again, then you can't be born again and not saved. Those things follow. The love of God is effective.
It works perfectly on those whom God exercises it. God never fails to rescue the soul He has determined to redeem. Now let's look at the one He gave. Love takes action, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.
The Son is God's gift to the world, one man says, and moreover it is the underscore underline gift. There are no divine gifts apart from or outside the once born Son. What's he trying to say? That in any other, that there's nothing to compare to it.
I mean, even if we just thought about, well, what good does the birth, life, and death do to the outside world, those who never believe? There are a lot of overflow effects, common grace as it were. When we even think about our governments, it may not have been Christian in the beginning, but it was certainly framed by Christian principles.
But this gift, getting back into our context, this gift of the Son of Jesus is of inestimable value. We often will read or hear someone preach this passage and they will talk about the example of the father who has the choice of saving the people on the train that is going to go over the bridge, or saving his son whose foot is stuck in the sewer, you know, all these kind of things.
And here's the truth. The truth is as heart-wrenching as those stories are, they pale in comparison to the love of God. The love of a father, the human love of a father, and may I say of a grandfather, is great.
But it pales in comparison for the love of God to those on those whom he sets it. Why? Because he gave his son. He gave his son. There is no greater gift, we think, of the suffering of the Son. And even at the last, that perfect relationship of the Trinity, the perfect union of the Trinity, the perfect communion between the Father and the Son.
And then we read, as Jesus is dying, he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Pain that he has never known as the Father turns his back on the Son. That's the gift. That's the depth of the love of God for us.
Jesus is the only Son in the sense that he is unique. The Greek word is monogamous. And we need to understand what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that he was the firstborn physically, as some heretics would have it, that he was uniquely God in some physical sense.
He was uniquely God. He was ever-existent. He's creator, not created. He's fully God and yet fully man. And he was uniquely commissioned by the Father to come to the world. In all those senses, he is the only Son.
But it's important to note that love is, as I said, love is never an emotion. If it's not just an emotion for us, in other words, if we have to act in order to actually demonstrate love, how much more true is that of God?
Just imagine if God said, I love you, and then he just kind of sat back and just said, you know, and I want you to love me too, and we'll just kind of emote together. That would be a wrong way to think of the love of God.
God's love acts. He takes action. So you've seen the degree of amazing love, the deity of amazing love, the depth of amazing love, and finally the design of amazing love. It's a design of rescue. Look again at the text.
It says that whoever believes in him should not perish. This whole last section of verse 16 is a purpose clause, as I said earlier. And when you see that word, that, it's the Greek word hina, which indicates a purpose is coming.
Something has happened, and now here's the reason why it's happened. And in this case, God loved the world and gave his Son, well, why? And now we have the why. His motive was love, but there was a reason, there was a plan.
So some will say, well, wait a minute, I know what the plan was. It was to rescue whoever believes. Whosoever, whoever is willing, whoever exercises free will, on that idea of free will, here's what I would say, or what does it mean that whoever believes?
What does it mean? Well, if you mean that all those who the Holy Spirit regenerates and who as a result of that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then yes, that's what whoever believes means. If by whoever believes, you mean that everyone of his or her free will, who decides to believe in the gospel, then no.
And you say, well, wait a minute, what about that word, whoever? What about whosoever? Are you trying to take that out of our Bible? Are you trying to say it's wrong? Well, in my class, I taught it several weeks ago, it's not there, the Greek word for whoever, it's a perfectly fine word, and it's not in this verse.
In fact, we did some research, we found out that the first English translation it appeared in predates the King James, and it was Catholic. It was a Catholic version. And then the King James used it, and now if you try to print one without it, they'd burn it.
But what it's really trying to describe, and it could be framed this way, it's just awkward, it's trying to describe one word in the Greek. It's a participle, or as we say in South Africa, participle.
And it literally, this word would mean believing ones, or those who are in a constant state of believing. And actually, as we'll see, it negates the idea of free will, because it doesn't have in this, there's no condition attached to it.
It's just a state of who they are. These are believing ones. Again, keep in mind that this is to explain the purpose of giving the Son. He came to rescue those whom he purposed to rescue. All those who come to faith in Christ at any point in their lives do so not based on their will, but on the power of God, as we've discussed, the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit.
No Christian has anything to boast of. Salvation is of the Lord from the foundation of the world to judgment day, when the Christian is ushered into heaven for all eternity. He chose you before time existed.
He convicted you of your need for salvation and caused you to be born again, declaring you to be righteous and imputing your sin to his Son on the cross. For the rest of your life, he will sanctify you, that is, conform you unto the image of his Son, until the day the Lord returns to gather you or takes you home.
Now, this is not to say that we, well, let me say it another way. We have a will. It is to say that no one ever believed in Christ by virtue of exercising his or her free will. You have a will, but before salvation, it is in bondage to sin.
All who believe, or all who come to faith, come because those chains have been torn asunder. Christ has paid the debt of all who love him and are his. If you are a Christian, the moment God granted you faith was the first moment of your life that you were capable of pleasing him.
Before that, everything you had done was filthy. It was muddied up with sin and unsuited to present to a thrice holy God. You couldn't come up to him and just go, well, look at this glob of mud. Won't you let me into heaven?
You need the righteousness of another. Now, again, getting back into the technical aspect here, the Greek construction, the hynna clause, purpose clause, prefaced by that, and it really, I like so that better because that shows the purpose better and a lot of translations have that.
But the hynna, that, followed by subjunctive mood of verbs, and this is not common, but that's exactly what we have here. Both these verbs are subjunctive and it is used to express both the divine purpose and the results.
In other words, God sent his son, why? So that believers would without fail not perish. So they would not experience hell. That is the very reason that the father sent the son, so that believers won't suffer spiritual death.
Leon Morris says talking about spiritual death, talking about hell, says a dreadful reality. It is a dreadful reality that awaits the impenitent, those who don't come to Christ. It is often said that hell is the absence of God.
Well, that can't be because he is everywhere. It is the absence of the mercy and the love and compassion of God. It is the absolute exposure to his wrath and his justice. His unquenchable wrath for those who broke his law and rejected his son will go on for eternity.
It is also a design of reward. It is a design of rescue and a design of reward. Look, it says there that they will have eternal life. On the one hand they won't perish, but instead, on the other hand, they will have eternal life.
And again, both perishing and have are both in the subjunctive. So Jesus came to die. He was sent by the Father to this earth so that believers absolutely would not go to hell, and yet they absolutely would have eternal life.
It is the most stark contrast in all of scripture. Think about it. Why did Jesus say of Judas Iscariot that it would be better for him if he was never born? Because he was going to hell. So whatever joys and delights that Judas experienced during his life, think, I mean, he even saw the miracles of Jesus.
We don't know if he was married. We don't know if he had kids. We don't know much about Judas. But whatever, you know, his favorite restaurant was, whatever things he liked to do, whatever his golf handicap was, Jesus says it would be better for him that if he'd never been born.
Now think of the contrast, the opposite of that. For you, no matter what the worst situation in your life is, no matter how dreadful life is, it's better for you that you were born if you belong to Christ.
No matter how much suffering there is here for you, there's eternal glory and peace in the presence of Christ forever. That's what the Father sending the Son accomplishes on behalf of those who believe.
Now this verse, John 3 .16, is often brought out as the ultimate trump card. You know, you say that God is sovereign in salvation. Well, what about John 3 .16, whosoever will? That's what my Bible says.
So does mine. It's just not a real good translation. And if we study in the context, we understand that. Jesus, the Lord never appeals to the will of Nicodemus in explaining eternal life ever. He doesn't do that.
Now John explains this sovereignty of God in salvation in a few places. I'm just going to quickly go through a few. You don't have to turn there, just listen. John 1 .13, believers were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 6 .44, no one can come to me. No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And listen, and I will raise him up on the last day. Those who the Father draws, I will raise. John 8 .34 -36, Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
The slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son remains forever. Listen, verse 36, so if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. You don't choose to be free. The Son sets you free. John 10 .25 -29, Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe.
The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
And no one, no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. And finally verse, or John 15 .16, Jesus talking to his disciples, he says, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask in the Father's name, he may give it to you.
It's all of God. God takes the initiative of salvation. The love of God is vast beyond all measure, and it is displayed by the Father sending his Son into a fallen sin-stricken world to rescue those whom he chose and who could not rescue themselves.
I don't know how many John 3 .16 signs I've seen during my lifetime, many, whether they be in the end zones and football games, behind home plate in World Series games, car bumpers, book covers, jewelry, even on the bottom of In-N-Out Burger cups.
Most of you don't know what In-N-Out Burger is, but to me, you know, people like to make me suffer by posting pictures of In-N-Out on the internet, but a West Coast treat. But knowing its contents, John 3 .16, and knowing the God who testifies of it, maybe two different things.
Let me ask you, do you know God as Creator? Do you know God as Sovereign? Do you know him as the King over all things, including you? Do you know that one sin, one lie, one bit of coveting, one failure to love your neighbor, one moment of failing to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, just one sin is enough to merit eternal destruction, unending torment?
I would urge each one of you here this morning to examine yourself. Do you believe in Jesus of Nazareth, fully God and fully man, who willingly took the punishment? Do you, so that you might be credited with his righteousness and perfection?
Do you believe in Christ, triumphant over the grave, raised on the third day and now seated in heaven, interceding on behalf of those who love him? I pray that each one here will come to know by the testimony of the Holy Spirit that Christ has bought you and that you have been redeemed.
And I would urge you, if that's not your testimony, if that's not the way you think about God and his love and his salvation, I would urge you to repent, that is, to have a change of mind even today. Let's pray.
Father, you are indeed sovereign. You work in the lives of your children, those whom you chose even before the foundations of the world. In time you convicted them of their sin. You brought them to yourself.
You opened their eyes to see you and to see themselves in a way that they'd never seen before. Father, for anyone who does not know Christ and is within the sound of my voice, I pray that you would convict of sin now, that you would convict of the need for a savior now.
Father, even as we contemplate your love and your goodness toward us, if we think even with Paul that we are the worst of sinners, the foremost of sinners, the chief of sinners, that you would make us ambassadors for Christ, those who would long to share the good news of Jesus Christ, that we might see many come to salvation in our families, our friends, even in our workplaces.
Lord, would you seal these truths to our hearts, that John 3 .16 is about a sovereign God working out his purposes in love toward us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.