It's Tough to be Famous

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the third chapter of the Gospel of John.
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Anytime a verse is often quoted, it is just as often quoted out of context and used to prove ideas and beliefs that it was never intended to convey.
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And there is no more verse which is more quoted than the one we have arrived at this morning.
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It is seen painted on signs at professional sporting events.
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We see it plastered on car windows and bumper stickers as we drive down the highway.
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It is used on countless gospel message tracks which are handed out.
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It is by, it would have to be anyone's estimation, the most famous verse in the English Bible.
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This morning, we're going to see that sometimes it is tough to be famous.
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Interestingly enough, this is the first time I've ever preached it as the main text.
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It's the first time I've ever preached John 3, 6, and I thought in seven years as the senior pastor, I've never preached this verse as the main text.
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I've quoted it certainly hundreds of times, but it's interesting, as I was saying, and Byron said, well, seven years, seven is the year, the number of completion, the number of perfection.
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So we've arrived.
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But what I mean when I say it's tough to be famous is that by being a famous Bible passage, so many take for granted that they not only understand it, but that they can use it to prove certain points, even when those points are not proven by the text.
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This passage has been used to support all kinds of things such as anti-Trinitarianism, Arminianism, easy-believism, and anti-lordship theology.
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It is really a catch-all for bad theology.
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So even though it is famous, we would be remiss if we did not seek to ensure that we understand what it says and what it does not say.
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Last week, we started in the third chapter of the Gospel of John, we began in verse one and we went down through verse 15 and we stopped just short of this famous passage.
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Well, this morning, we're going to pick up right where we left off and follow the teachings of Jesus through the end of his thought.
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You remember, he is in a conversation with Nicodemus.
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Nicodemus is a ruler of the Jews who has come to Jesus by night.
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Jesus has already challenged Nicodemus's ignorance about the requirement that one must be born again to see the kingdom of God or to enter the kingdom of God and that they must be born from above.
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That's another way of saying born again.
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They must be spiritually cleansed.
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They must be reborn.
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And now, after having explained that and used the serpent on the pole in the Old Testament as the picture, the example of turning to Christ in faith, he says, just as the serpent was lifted up, so must also the Son of Man be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
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At that point, Jesus then goes into that very famous passage for which we are all familiar.
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So let's stand together and we will begin there at verse 16 and we will read to the end of this conversation.
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Verse 21, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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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, whoever believes in him is not condemned.
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But whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.
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And this is the judgment.
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The light has come into the world and the people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
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But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this awesome opportunity to get to study your word.
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And I pray, oh, Lord, that you would first and foremost keep me from error and that you would open the hearts of your congregation to the truth and that your Holy Spirit would be the teacher this morning.
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We pray all these things in Jesus name, amen.
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As a student and now teacher of reformed theology, I have certainly had to spend many hours dealing with the objections which people have against that particular view.
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And it's not surprising that people would object to the teachings of reformed theology as it deals with some of the most difficult in the Bible.
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It deals with subjects such as election, predestination and the holy wrath of God.
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And these are subjects that many folks do not even want to think about, much less would they want to accept them into their theology.
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They have to make it part of their theological understanding, their paradigm.
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As a result, I have gotten quite used to the objections which are commonly offered up to that theology.
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And the one which I come across most often is, well, John 3, 16 proves that reformed theology is wrong.
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That's very, very common objection.
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In fact, there is an Arminian conference that goes on this year.
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It's in its second annual year.
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It is put on by a group that believe that reformed theology is untrue.
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And the title of the conference is the John 3, 16 conference.
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That's the name of the event.
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I remember one night years ago that I was here teaching our karate class that we have on Thursday nights, and one of the moms had two little boys.
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I think they were twins, if I remember correctly.
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But she was here and had been going to another church and they were talking about reformed theology in her church and it had upset her greatly.
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And knowing I was the pastor of this church, she came to me and sort of, well, what do you think about it? I said, well, I believe and teach reformed theology.
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And well, how can you do that? John 3, 16, John 3, 16.
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She just kept saying this as if saying it more over and over was was going to somehow invoke me to just say, oh, I never read that, you know.
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And I think that's the surprising point is not only have reformed theologians read John 3, 16, we understand what it means and it doesn't challenge us.
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It encourages us in what we believe.
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And I think that's important for us to understand is that it in no way violates what we teach about the sovereignty of God, about the depravity of man and about God's ultimate power in the saving relationship.
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I think that's important for all of us to understand.
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And as we will see as we examine this passage, it is in no way violates the teachings of reformed theology.
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It supports our faith, encourages our trust, and we can continue to preach as other churches for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
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It's a true statement.
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It's a beautiful statement.
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It does, in a sense, encapsulate the truth of the gospel.
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And it's important that we understand it.
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So this morning we're going to examine it, we're going to examine John 3, 16, and then we're going to examine the subsequent verses which come after it so that we understand also the context in which it sits.
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So many people know just that verse.
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They know nothing of what came before, which is what we studied last week.
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They know nothing of the conversation that's going on between Jesus and the Jewish theologian, Nicodemus.
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They also know nothing of what comes after.
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They only know this one verse as if it sits on an island apart from the rest of the word of God.
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So it's important that we always study in context.
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So what we're going to do is we're going to begin right at verse 16.
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If you want to look back with me and we're going to break apart this passage in just a few sentences.
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First, we're going to look at the first phrase that's made in John 3, 16.
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For God so loved the world.
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And now we can stop there because I want to identify and focus on some of the words that are being used here and how in English and in the Greek, some of these things are not conveyed in the same way.
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Some expositors argue that the word so in that phrase, for God so loved the world indicates degree, as in God loved the world so much.
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That he gave his only son, and that's the argument of some, however, the adverb which is being used here in the Greek, who toss is the word more frequently is used to refer to the manner in which something is done rather than to the degree of how degree the degree to which something is done.
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So this is why in certain versions, instead of saying, for God so loved the world, the text reads this way.
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In this way, God loved the world.
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Speaking of manner, it's in this manner that God loved the world.
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It's in this way that God loved the world, that he gave his only son.
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The New English translation, which, again, I've mentioned many times is one of my favorite textual critical versions of the Bible, makes this point and I'll read the quote.
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It is likely that John is emphasizing both the degree to which God loved the world, as well as the manner in which he chose to express that love.
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This is in keeping with John's style of using the double entrada or the double meaning.
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Thus, the focus of the Greek construction here is on the nature of God's love, addressing its mode, intensity and extent.
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Again, in this way, God loved the world.
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In the first portion of this verse, we're seeing the expression of God's love for the world.
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Now, when we say that word world, that's another word which often causes some confusion because we say in this way, God loved the world.
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And a lot of people say, well, that word world is a statement about every single individual person in the world, and as such, it is God's purpose to save every single individual person in the world.
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However, while it is without doubt that all people in the world are recipients of God's common grace, we know that every person in the world receives a modicum of grace from God, because the Bible tells us that the sun shines on the just and the unjust, the rain falls on the just and the unjust.
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Every person in the world receives a portion of the grace of God.
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Every person in that sense receives a portion of the love of God.
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However, while it is without doubt that that is true, the passage later goes on to say this, that it is not every person in the world who will not perish, but it is only those who believe in the sun who will not perish.
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So whether or not the extent of love that is being shared here is love for every single individual or if more appropriately so, it is love for people from every tribe, tongue and nation, which is another way the word world is used in the scriptures to describe people from every tribe, tongue and nation.
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Either way, it doesn't matter, because the point of the text is this, that God's love for the world was demonstrated this way, that the persons who believe in his son will not perish.
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That's how his love has been demonstrated.
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That's why it says in this way, God loved the world, that he gave his only son.
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That's how God's love was shown to the world.
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He gave his son.
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And by the way, the term only son is also an important phrase to understand.
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Monogony is the Greek term.
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It's a combination of two words, mono, which means singular or one or only.
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And gene means type or kind.
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It's where we get the word gene in English.
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If you think about your genes, that's what makes up you.
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They are unique to you.
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It's your genes and no one else has your genes.
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You have a unique genetic code.
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Some people get confused when they hear the phrase only son to be described of Jesus because people will say, but wait a minute, aren't we all sons and daughters of God? Aren't we all God's children? And there's a little argument in regard to that, because the Bible says we aren't all God's children.
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We are made God's children by faith.
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But that's another argument entirely.
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The point is we are told that we can call God our father.
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We are told that he is to be called Abba, which is a term which in the English equivalent would be like dad or daddy.
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We're told to call God our father.
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How then is Jesus called the only son of God that he said his only son? Why is that phrase only you? Why is monogamy used? Well, the reason is simple, monogamy doesn't mean only in the sense that God has no other children.
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The word monogamy means unique.
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He is the only one like him.
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In fact, how many of you remember Abraham in the Old Testament when he took Isaac to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed? What did God say to him? Take your son, your only son, whom you love.
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Was Isaac his only son? Did not he have Ishmael, the son of Hagar? He had another son.
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Why did God say take your son, your only son? The term only son means they're your unique son, the only one that came by way of the promise, the unique one.
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So, too, when it says here that Jesus is the only son of God, it's referring to his unique quality.
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There is none other like Jesus.
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He is the only God man.
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Jesus is one of a kind.
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While all Christians are, what the phrase in Greek, tekna theou, we are children of God.
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Jesus is God's only begotten son.
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Now, don't let that word begotten throw you.
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If you read the King James, you see that word begotten.
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Some people think that that speaks of relationship as if Christ is begotten of God in the same way I beget hope.
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And then hope, you know, when she's an adult and has children that it's not in that sense that Jesus is begotten.
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And that word can be confusing.
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It's not that way.
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The begotten of God means that Jesus is unique.
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He came from God uniquely as no one else had.
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So, again, reading the text in this way, God loved the world that he gave his unique son.
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That whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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This phrase has often been misunderstood to mean that anyone can believe if they simply put their minds to it.
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However, Jesus tells us in John chapter six that that's actually not the case.
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Jesus tells us in John chapter six that coming to him is a work of God.
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It says no one can come to me unless the Father in heaven grants it to him.
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The coming to Christ is a work of God, that God changes our hearts to have a desire to come to him.
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So what of this phrase whoever and whosoever? Well, in the Greek, by the way, there is no word for whosoever or whoever.
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The Greek is pas hapistoum and it means simply all the ones believing or all the believing ones.
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So the text literally says in this way, God loved the world that he gave his unique son, that all the believing ones will not perish.
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It speaks not of who will or who will not believe.
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It speaks not of ability or scope outside of anything other than to say the ones believing.
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And by the way, the believing there is in the is in the context of continued belief.
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It's not a one time belief.
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This so frustrates me.
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Well, I'm going to heaven.
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I believed in Jesus when I was six years old and got baptized.
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It has not affected my life at all.
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That belief is not continued with me to this day.
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And I live a life totally devoid of faith.
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But I believed in Jesus.
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And hey, John 3 16 says if the ones who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life.
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Beloved, that's what's called easy believism.
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It is a false doctrine.
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It has infected the church and has created an anti lordship theology that down to this day has created a group of people who call themselves Christian, who are nothing of the sort.
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But yet they claim John 3 16 as their banner of hope.
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Believing here denotes continuation of belief.
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The belief is ongoing.
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The belief is life changing.
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And the belief has a singular object, the unique son of God.
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Beloved, one thing that might help you with that word belief and it helped me years ago was when I began to study how the reformers understood what it meant to believe.
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Because you remember Martin Luther was the one who championed the idea of justification by faith alone.
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What we call sola fide, to be justified by faith alone.
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And the entire church of his time, the Roman Catholic Church, came out in force against him.
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And their argument was if you leave man to live by faith alone, he will become lawless and degenerate.
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You must give him law to live by.
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He cannot be allowed to live by faith alone.
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And beloved, much of the prophetic words of the Catholic teachers of the time have become true because many people have taken the road of easy believism.
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They've taken the road of anti lordship faith, which is an oxymoronic statement.
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And as a result, we see folks who call themselves Christian that live like the devil.
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So as a result, in response to that, the reformers taught that belief as it is described in scripture, pistos, the word for faith in Greek, as it is described in scripture, needs to be understood as more than simply believing in something, but it is to have faith in something.
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And they had three Latin terms that they that they taught.
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They said there was three things.
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There is gnosis, assensus, fiducia.
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Gnosis means simply to know a truth claim.
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Assensus is to believe a truth claim.
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Fiducia is to trust a truth claim.
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And here's how it works out practically.
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I've always loved to use this example.
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Some of you have heard me use it before.
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I know that a parachute will save me if I put one on and jumped out of a plane.
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And I believe it.
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I don't just know the claim of the parachute that it will save me.
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I also believe that it would.
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However, I stopped short of trust because I'm not jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.
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I'm not going to do it.
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Not for anything in the world.
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If the plane's running, I'm riding.
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And that's the point.
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So many people, they say, I believe in Jesus.
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But that belief does not translate into trust, trust that leads to a life lived for him.
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And as a result, it is not genuine faith.
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That's what needs to be understood about this passage, which says all that believe in him, all the believing ones will have eternal life.
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That belief is not just, hey, Jesus, you're my homeboy.
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These guys who wear those T-shirts.
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Jesus is my homeboy.
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No, he's not.
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He's the only son of God.
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Savior of the world.
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He is not your homeboy.
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But such trite statements are not silly.
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They're degrading to what genuine faith is.
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It's trust.
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In this way, God loved the world, that he gave his unique son, that all the ones who continue to trust in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
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And from there, the passage does not end.
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The passage continues.
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And as I said, I wanted to look at John 3, 16, but I don't want to stop there because it continues in verse 17.
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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.
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Why did Jesus come into the world? To seek and to save that which was lost.
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That's what he says.
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He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
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He came to save people from every tribe, from every tongue, from every nation expressed here by the word world.
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This is really a powerful thought.
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If you think about this in context, he's talking to a Jewish teacher, Nicodemus, who has only understood God's love in one way.
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God loved the Jews.
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He's only understood God's love in a very narrow, very specific way.
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God loves my people.
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And beloved, the Pharisees had a very, very ill opinion of the rest of the world.
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Some of them so much that if they had to travel to a foreign land, when they came back into the land of Israel, they would they would clean their feet and clean their bodies as if to clean all of the degeneration of those other peoples off so that they could come back to the holy land.
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Beloved, Jesus is challenging Nicodemus to say there are people from every tribe who God loves and intends to say there are people from every nation.
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By the way, this is an attack also against racism.
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Because God loves people from every tribe, God loves people from every color, God loves people from every background, God loves people from every place in the world.
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And they're all people and they all are recipients of grace and to and to discourage a person because simply they're different than us is to not love on the level that which God loves.
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And this passage is important.
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As I said during communion this morning, this passage is important because it says Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world.
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Why? Why didn't Jesus come to condemn the world? Because he didn't have to.
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The world was condemned already and had already received the law of God, both in written form.
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And it had also been written on the hearts of men.
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And it had been rejected in both ways, had been rejected in the heart, had been rejected in the written word.
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All men had fallen short of the glory of God.
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All men were condemned in their sins.
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And Jesus said, whoever believes in verse 18, whoever believes in him.
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Speaking of himself, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.
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This passage again enunciates man's predicament.
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Apart from Christ, there is no salvation for sins.
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If a person has faith in Christ, his sins are forgiven.
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However, apart from Christ, he is still in his sins and can look forward to nothing but the terrible wrath of God.
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He is under the condemnation of God.
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But if you are in Christ, the Bible says there is therefore now in Christ no condemnation.
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Romans chapter eight and verse one.
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You have nothing but condemnation outside of Christ and in Christ there is no condemnation.
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And I love Romans eight one because it speaks in the present tense.
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It says there is therefore now no condemnation.
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So this is where the Roman Catholics lose the battle because they argue that we will be justified one day if we continue in faith and works and the participation in the sacraments.
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But beloved, the idea of Christian theology is not that we will be justified one day, but that we have already been justified and there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Looking at verse 18, some people misread this passage and I want to I want to make this point and I hope that I don't confuse anyone.
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But this is an important point because some people misread this passage and they think that the lack of faith in Christ is what's doing the condemnation and it can be read that way.
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However, I want to make a point and some of you, this may seem like I'm taking a hard right here, but please hang with me.
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This is very important.
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We know there are people who have never heard of Christ in the world.
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We also know there are people who have only heard the wrong things about Christ.
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Many people in the Muslim world have only heard of Esau.
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Esau is how Jesus is called in the Koran and in the Koran, he is painted a much different picture.
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In the Koran, it says that Christ did not die on the cross.
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It says he is not the son of God.
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It says many things about Christ that are just wrong.
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And some people, that's the only picture of Jesus they ever get.
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Why do I bring up people who have never heard of Christ? Because, beloved, they too are condemned.
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People ask, what happens to somebody who's never heard of Christ? They live under the wrath of God.
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How is that fair? Because they are still sinners.
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They are.
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They're still sinners.
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They are still justly under the wrath of God.
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Are you telling me, those who may be having an argument in your heart, are you telling me that a person who doesn't hear of Christ might be saved in another way? Please tell me what way it is.
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Or I'll challenge you one further.
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If it is true that if someone never hears of Christ, then they can be saved outside of hearing Christ.
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Why do we send missionaries to these people? Wouldn't it be better if they just never heard? We send missionaries because we believe that the only way someone can be saved is to hear and believe the gospel.
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So we go to these people who've never heard with the gospel so that they can hear it and by faith receive it.
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The Bible says, how can one believe if he doesn't hear? And how can one hear if no one preaches to him? So we send out missionaries to preach to them because it's beloved.
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It's so important that we understand that condemnation has come to all men, but salvation comes to only those who believe in Christ.
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There is no salvation in any other way than Christ.
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And again, some people look at this verse and they say, well, the reason why they're condemned is because they don't believe in the name of the Son of God.
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Well, that's true, but only in this sense.
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I want you to imagine.
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I want you to imagine someone's in a house and the house is on fire.
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OK, there are stories, two or three stories above the ground.
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Their house is on fire.
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They are trapped.
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There is a ladder which has been brought to their window and the fireman has climbed the ladder.
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Ready to take them to safety, beloved, if they stay in the home, the fire will bring their doom.
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If they embrace the fireman, he will bring their rescue.
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One could say if that person perished, that they were they perished, they were condemned in the fire because they refused to embrace the fireman.
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And that would be true as far as it goes.
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The reason their condemnation came, the reason they died is because they refused to embrace the fireman.
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That's what this verse is saying.
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But beloved, the fireman didn't kill them.
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The fire killed them.
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So to hear the condemnation doesn't come in not believing in Christ.
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The condemnation comes in the sin.
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The sin brings the condemnation.
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But if you don't believe in Christ, that's all you have.
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Thus, the text can say we are condemned already because we've not believed beloved.
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Let it never for a moment cross your mind that the reason why people go to hell is because they don't believe in Jesus.
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Now, the reason why people go to hell is because they are sinners.
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The only salvation from sin is Christ.
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Thus, in that sense, they go to hell because they don't believe in Christ.
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But the reason why they are condemned is their sin.
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I know that may seem like a wild, hard thing to believe, but know this, beloved, every person who ends in hell ends in hell condemned justly for their sin.
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Somebody says, well, wait, I thought Jesus paid the price for sin for everybody.
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Wait a minute.
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Jesus paid the price for sin for everybody, but you still go to hell.
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That's not fair.
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And God would be unjust.
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But wait a minute, Pastor, if Jesus paid the sin for everybody, we just go to hell if we don't believe in him.
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OK.
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Is not believing in Jesus a sin, then did he pay for all sins except that one? So does that mean Jesus didn't pay for all sins? This really is deep.
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I'm taking you much deeper than I thought I would this morning.
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But I want you to really think about it, because the reality is faith is the only thing that separates the believer from the or the saved person from the unsaved person.
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But sin is the common bond between the two.
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Both the believer and the unbeliever deserve hell.
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But faith in Christ, the only one who saves.
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Is what saves the believer from hell.
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So in that sense, we have to understand that the person who goes to hell goes to hell because of sin, but the person who goes to heaven goes to heaven because of Christ.
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And it's simple, but it's also complex.
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And Jesus ended his conversation with Nicodemus in verses 19 through 21 by saying, and this is the judgment, the light is coming to the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because they're working for the light.
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But the light is coming to the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because they're working for the light because their works were evil for everyone who does wicked things, hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed.
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But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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Beloved, all men are sinners and all men love the darkness.
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And we see this in the world today.
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Look out at our world, look how much people love the darkness, how much people love sin.
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I read a book this week, Compelling Interest, the story of Roe versus Wade, and I'm not finished.
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I'm 19 chapters in and guess what? Every chapter there is a demonstration of the depravity and the love of darkness, which has so infected our world that it's at the highest levels of our governmental authority, even to the Supreme Court.
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That we can't even understand the idea that taking a life is a sin, is unjust.
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And we love it so much that we make it part of our law.
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By the way, next week is Sanctity of Life Sunday.
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So I will be dealing with more of that next week.
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But the reality I wanted to point out this morning is that in the darkness there is a great light and it's not the light which comes from our good works.
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It's the light which comes from the Christ who is within each one of us through whom we do those good works.
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The light which burns in the heart of men and women who are drawn by the Father to believe in the Son.
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They are the ones which will not only live forever with God, but will also live with purpose in this world to carry the light of Christ into the darkness and stand for his truth.
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We who say we believe in God, does that belief affect our lives? Does that faith affect our behavior? Beloved, if it doesn't, it is not real faith.
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And we sit remaining in the same condition we always were, in condemnation.
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So I ask you to search your heart, to seek within and ask yourself the question, has my statement of faith resulted in a life of faith? Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we thank you for this opportunity to have looked at this important set of scriptures this morning.
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And I pray, O Lord, that you will use it to open hearts, to encourage lives.
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And Lord God, if there's one here who knows not Christ, that you would use it to bring that powerful act of regeneration which you and only you can do.
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I pray, O Lord, conviction and conversion would come to lives that need it.
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And Lord God, that all of us would learn that our faith is more than words, but it is actions.
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Love towards you, love towards others, and love of the gospel.
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We thank you for your son, Jesus, and it's in his name we pray.