Offer of a Lifetime - John 3:16-21

We are walking our way through this rich book, the Gospel of John.  I want to briefly summarize where we are in this book.  In the first chapter, the prelude of the book, John establishes that Jesus was before the beginning, He was the Word that became flesh (v14) and that all who believe in Him have the right to become children of God (v12).  That John the Baptist introduces Him to be world as the Lamb of God (v29) who He baptizes in the waters of repentance and God baptizes with the Holy Spirit (v33).  Jesus begins to call disciples who embark on a life changing experience of following Him.  

In chapter 2 we witness the first miracle of Jesus when he changes water into wine and his disciples see for the first time that HE IS GOD and He is what makes it possible for us to be made pure before God, contrasted by the experience when Jesus clears the temple, saying that He is going to be the center of our faith in God and that He knows what is in a persons heart and where they stand with Him. 

Last time, we looked at the story of Nicodemus in chapter 3 where Jesus says we must be ‘born from above’ and Nicodemus trys to make humanistic sense of a spiritual re-birth.

Now John brings us to the brass tacks of the gospel that will be re-told and illustrated in many different ways through the rest of our book, verses 16-21 encapsulate the gospel in a no-nonsense sort of way.  Brass tacks are the “most important or basic facts of a situation”

This morning we are going to walk our way through these verses, then I am going to introduce to you a story that was in the media this last week that illustrates this in a beautiful way, then I will make some applications to our lives for us to deal with.

We start off talking about perhaps the best known verse in the whole bible…a profound verse of reality and truth. 

John 3:16-21

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

 God’s love is an active love.  He is real and He takes initiative to express his love to you and I.  It is not a self-seeking love for His own purposes, but a sacrificial love that is for our best

John uses “world” (Gr. Kosmos) 78 times in this gospel alone and 24 times in his letters.  When he uses “world” he is not talking about the natural world of trees and animals or plants; instead he is talking about the realm of humanity that is in open opposition to God, His ways, truth and life he offers.  He sends his son into hostile territory, God the Father, knowingly sent his son into harms way fully aware of the hostility he would face and the sacrifice that was going to be required to redeem the world.

He ‘gave’ is past tense.  From the beginning, God had planned to sacrifice His Son who He loved so that we might be redeemed into His family.   He is a God who expresses His love in self-sacrifice

Son – picture of a future hope – Our hope in this world is in our children, the generation to come.  God is giving his future hope for our future hope; His image of perfection (his son) to restore your image of perfection (the transformed you!)

His son is Unique – there is no one else like him or will there ever be.  He is the one who came from heaven for His creation.  He was not a prophet,  nor myth, he was not an idea nor ideal, but a real divine person, from God himself, who had been with God from the beginning.  He was not an enlightened man but a man of the light, who produced and permeated the light of truth. 

He was unique and His mission was universal – he came for the entire world.  He did not come to save and redeem only Israel; he did not come to save a select few.  He did not come for a particular race or nation, but for all.  He did not come for the poor or the wealthy, for money – either the lack or abundance of- holds no value to him.  He did not come for the educated nor uneducated for he has all knowledge.  He did not come for any particular social status, for every status lives in the dark.  There is no one enlightened that has not encountered and received the light HE alone offers.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

To condemn is to pass judgment and pronounce punishment that would restrict a person’s future.  Jesus did not come to condemn but to reveal the severity of our situation and to rescue us, he came to provide a way of escape.  He comes to bring his light into a dark world as if someone were standing at a doorway with a flashlight and the building was about to fall in and crumble on top of us.

Jesus Reveals our situation – he exposes our condition

His light reveals the sin, the problems, the cancerous death that lurks in our lives.  His interest is not in condemning us for living around such an environment but instead to open a doorway for us to escape. 

He comes to punish sin, the power that kills us, and provide us with life.

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 

Jesus has not come to condemn the world, but to reveal the world for what it is and who we are.  He wants us to recognize the great value we are to God, so valuable that the Father has provided a way of our escape for everyone in the darkness who will respond to Jesus. 

If we were standing in a building that was about to cave in on us and Jesus is standing at a doorway with the light that would show us how to get to the door and we said “NO – THANK YOU VERY MUCH”  it would not be Jesus who condemns us to die, or anyone else, but we ourselves.

Jesus does not bring us a ‘virdict’, but a process where those who see his light and recognize the tragedy of their own situation have only one responsibility – to believe. 

Our outcome is in our own hands

19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

He came for all the women and men on the planet who embrace the dark habitually.

We are children of the dark – we love sin, we are addicted to our sin – we know it well, we know how to live life in conjunction with our sin, we have accepted it, we embrace it,

We can think that ‘happiness’ is found in the dark; that love is found in the dark. 

That acceptance is found in the dark where others don’t see all of who we really are. 

These are the hidden areas of our life that we hang on to.

We choose evil ways to protect ourselves – we lie, cheat, steal, we take advantage of others.

We commit adultery, we discredit and defame God himself.  We look to the idols of materialism and justify to ourselves that we “need” those things that we will throw away before long.

We have all sinned, we have missed the target of looking like and acting like a good, holy, perfect God.  How can we really consider ourselves to be God’s children when we don’t do the things he would do or speak the truth that He would speak in every situation? 

Maybe we are not really sure Jesus can really change our lives – or that we are not really sure we want Jesus to change us. 

Our affections are corrupt, our desires are fallen and we are always not eager to be redeemed – that is our verdict.

20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

We are stubborn.  We fight against the light. We know who we really are, what we have really done, what we have actually thought about this person or that action.  We know we are not entirely good, and the guilt can eat us up.  That is one reason many people today rely on drugs – whether they are hallucinogenic or antidepressants, they dull the pain, take the edge off, a way to escape the pain. 

Maybe it is not drugs or alcohol – instead it could be porn, or food, or exercise, or the need to buy something new or always in need of a vacation, anything to get me away – to escape

If someone really found out who I am, what I have done, the way I think, they won’t really love me

Jesus coaxes us out of the dark – the world where we will die – and to come into the light where we can live.  He wants to change us – to be just like himself.

21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."

He changes us to be a whole person

Augustine said – the problem is not that we sin, but that we are in a state of sin that needs a comprehensive solution.

Jesus becomes our solution  - a solution sent by God. – He gives his life so that we might live and just as God raises him up from the dead, we too walk free and alive.  We experience something that is completely unexpected, love that is more than merely human.

I want you to listen to a story this morning that was aired on CBC radio this last Thursday…

Scott Dudley is a Christian and an active member of Living Word church in Oak Harbor where he is also the Mayor of the city.  I spoke with his pastor who shared with me that it was out of Scotts own personal relationship with Jesus that enabled him to be willing to donate his kidney to Phil Rosario. Last spring,  Scott had been planning on going to Haiti on a mission trip with his church but the trip was cancelled due to the political situation going on and so it freed him up to be able to come to Vancouver on a Rotary trip.  He was already in a mode of giving himself away.

You heard him say that Vancouver General asked him ‘how well he knew Phil’ and he said he had never met him.  “Why don’t you donate to your own kind?”  and he replied need knows no borders. 

Jesus did not come for just his own, but the world.  Christianity is not a white mans religion, or brown, or yellow.  He didn’t come just for the middle eastern Jews but for Palestinians, Iranians, Africans, Indians, Chinese, Korean, European, Mexican, Brazilian, and Canadians.  God’s love knows no borders.

Phil said he didn’t know why Scott had picked him, but he was grateful that he did. 

Scott’s pastor said it was as a result of what Jesus had done for him that he was inclined to give Phil his kidney.  Scott didn’t interview him to find out if he was worthy of his kidney, to make sure he was a ‘good person’ – it didn’t matter, he was a person who was worthy to live.

God didn’t care how bad you had been, Jesus death on the cross was sufficient for it all.  His love for you longs for you to be with him. 

Phil said that he had ‘not really grasped the reality of his illness or the severity of it’ 

That is true for all of us regarding our own sin.  We never think our sin is that serious, that it will kill our spirits, but it does and it will if you and I don’t get a replacement, a new life.  We must be born from above. 

Phil said he had been stubborn and wouldn’t go to the doctor until the symptoms became untollerable and when he and his wife found out that his illness was fatal they were shocked. 

In a news article Keesha, Phil’s wife says “It’s unbelievable how the universe pans out.  Through Rotary Club, a lot of amazing things happen.” 

Isn’t that how the world today responds,  God is not a universal force, but an active God who loves and moves so that you and I can see him, his love and respond to the rescue that Jesus offers.

Phil gave Scott a watch as a gift, he knew Scott had given him the gift of time.

Jesus dies to give us more than time, he gives us eternal life. 

When we believe in him and trust him to be our rescue, he dies holding the door open for us, and God brings him back to life and we also receive that life – we live the same life as Jesus lives.

This morning I invite you to trust Jesus, take the doorway that Jesus provides.  Receive the gift of your lifetime that is more important than a kidney, but the spirit of God.