ON THE EASTER ROAD (4)
Readings: Psalm 107:1-3, Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-21; Ephesians 2:4-10
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, March 10, 2024
How do you define a classic? What makes a classic anything? If you had to list 10 classic TV shows or name 10 classic automobiles or 10 classic breakfast cereals or 10 classic pieces of classical music, what criteria would you use? According to ‘Webster’s New Expanded Dictionary’ for something to be classic it has to be "Of the first rank; Timeless; a Masterpiece."
I want to look with you today at a classic bible verse… John 3:16.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son
So that everyone who believes in Him
Should not perish but have everlasting life.
"For God so loved the world ..."
That God loves this world is a stunning insight. Why? Because there is much not to love about this world. Suffering and violence and war to name but a few things. There are parts of the world that we don't like. There are places that we avoid because we don't want to go there. There are people, sometimes whole groups of people, whom we don't want anything to do with.
But God so loves the world God created. God is not blind to its pain or its sin or the stupidity of its inhabitants. Those are things that happen in spite of God’s love. God’s love towards the world remains solid as a rock. We live as though God’s concern didn't really count for much. This verse reminds us that because God so loves this world, so we should be concerned about the way we live our lives in this world.
John explains a few verses later that we love the darkness rather than the light. We may sometimes think that we love the light more than we love the darkness, but our actions give us away. Whilst we say things like, "You know money can't buy you happiness" we then go on to daydream about riches or power, about what we'd do if we won the ultimate lottery prize. We are captivated by the thought that our deepest needs can be met without having to involve God.
We say that we think the world would be a better place if folk were more forgiving to each other, but ... hey… don’t cross me… something goes wrong, someone hurts us and instinctively we cherish the hurt and plot retaliation. We love the anger, we harbor the revenge, we want to take control and get even.
What’s more we hate the sins of others far more than we hate our own. We learn to live with our own sins. We don't like it that way, but it's easier to accommodate our shortcomings than to change.
If you are talking about sinners, let's talk about that woman up the road who can't control her tongue, or that man on television who did that awful murder, or those torturers in that country who act so inhumane. There's always someone we can point at to make our darkness look bright.
That's the sort of world we live in and that's the sort of people we are. We stumble about hardly considering that God might be concerned about the state of things in our lives. God’s up there doing holy stuff with the angels and chatting with the saints and doing whatever God does all day. You can't seriously believe God is actually concerned with the nitty-gritty of life on this planet?
Such is exactly what this classic text is telling us. That God loves this world and the people who inhabit this world. Is there anybody here who is not a member of the human race? Any Martians, or Venusians or Plutonians?
Being a British citizen, I do have a Green Card that explains that I am actually an alien, but only an alien to the United States. I am a citizen of planet earth and like every one of you God does not want me to have a life that is alienated from God's love. ‘God so loves the world’ means that God so loves you... as an inhabitant of the world… that God does not want for you to live a single moment that is not surrounded by God's love.
That’s good news. No wonder this verse is a classic. It tells us that the depth of concern God has for our lives is mind-boggling in its intensity. But let’s move on. God so loved the world;
“That He gave His only Son...”
Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:19 writes; "In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself" ‘In Christ’ God purposefully entered into the world’s pain and hurt and took it on. He is God with us and God for us. God knows exactly what it feels like to live as a vulnerable human being in this world.
John’s gospel links this verse to the story of Moses lifting up the bronze snake in the desert and telling the people of Israel to look upon it and be healed. Now remember… Moses was the one who came down from the mountain with the commandments saying… "Have no idols, make no images.” Then, there he is saying "Look at this bronze snake and be healed". It doesn't make sense. Why doesn't God stick to the rules?
Why? Because God is the God who goes far beyond the rules, beyond even the expectations of love. To make us God’s own, God has done the unthinkable. God gave us God’s only Son.
I can think of many things that I might give to somebody to try and convince them of love. Chocolates maybe. Or flowers even. Buy them a car. Give them a diamond. Take them on a cruise. I wouldn't try to convince anyone of my love by arranging that they take my only son, and mock Him and torture Him and murder Him. And if my son, Matthew were here, I think he would be glad to hear that!
Think about what a shocking, unthinkable, mind boggling picture of God's love towards us that this classic verse gives. God does the very thing He forbade Abraham to do with his only son Isaac. God gave His son to die upon a Cross. But why? Why would God do such a thing? What does it mean? We need to complete the verse. God so loved the world that He gave His only son...
“So that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
The Greek word used here for perish ‘apoletai’ (avpo,lhtai) means "shall not be ruined or destroyed; shall not be brought to nothing; shall not cease to exist or be deprived of reward."
There’s a huge paradox here. This world, the world that God loves, is also the world that is destroying and ruining us. The way of this world is not the way of God’s Kingdom. We are called by God to be in this world… because God loves this world, but not of this world… because the way of this world is a destructive way that can only offer emptiness and fruitlessness and which ultimately ruin us. “What good will it be” asks Jesus in Matthew 16:26 “For a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”
The Cross is the place where Jesus Christ perished. The Cross was the place where the world sought to ruin and destroy and bring to nothing and cause to cease all that Jesus came into the world to do. As they nailed Jesus Christ to the Cross the forces of evil in the world laughed out loud and said “That’s it. It’s over. We win. We don’t need God”.
When Jesus cried out ‘It is finished’ they thought that it was. But we read John 3:16 in the context of the Resurrection. ‘We are an Easter people and Hallelujah is our song.’ Three days after He was murdered there was a rumbling and an earthquake and a startling report of Good News that could only be accepted by believing in it. Three days later the message started to be proclaimed, ‘He is Alive!
At the end of his gospel account John tells us that his whole reason for writing was “That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:31).
"In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself." ‘In Christ’ God has made it possible for us to no longer be dominated by the ways of this world that bring us to nothing, that destroy and steal from us all that is good and true and holy, that ruin us and cause life to be a matter of little more than pointless survival.
On the Cross, In Christ, God took the force of that world upon Himself, so that, In Christ, we don’t have to. So that in this world we can live lives that are free and forgiven and being made new by the work of the Holy Spirit, revived, recreated, renewed, revitalized by the love of God.
The way, the only way, we can do that, is by believing. Who in this classic verse gets to receive and experience and know the love of God?
“Everyone who believes in Him”
Do we understand that? I’m not sure that everybody realizes that this, although a classic, is a highly exclusive verse of Scripture. It is a verse that speaks of tremendous blessings for those who believe, and it is truly a classic invitation for all to believe. But there’s reverse side to this. For those who don’t, it’s a picture of total despair.
Those who don’t believe, they don’t get to experience the love. They remain alienated from the love of God. Move on down to John 3:18 and it tells us plainly, “People who believe in God’s son are not judged guilty. Those who do not believe have already been judged guilty, because they have not believed in God’s one and only Son”
One of the pictures of God’s salvation in the Old Testament is that of Noah’s Ark. In the story of Noah there are only two types of people. It’s not the wealthy and poor, or young and old, or clever and stupid, or any other man-made division. It’s between those who believed and got on the boat and those who didn’t believe and drowned in the flood.
Our response to this classic verse is meant to be one of belief. Belief that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins. Belief that God raised Him from the dead. Belief that without Him we are lost. Belief that if we ask Him into our hearts we are saved.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
We have touched this morning on the very heart of the gospel. May these heart words touch our hearts. May we come back to them time and time again and discover fresh meaning in them. That's what makes a classic a classic.
A classic captures something that words can't adequately explain. We feel that here is something that is written just for us. Here is something that can shape our lives, that inspires us for the future, and helps us through each day.
John 3:16… a classic verse that invites us to participate in the love of God. Pay no attention and we will be lost. Believe it and we will find that every day we live on this earth is a day to live surrounded by love.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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