Advent: Love

Text: John 3:16 ESV

Introduction

John 3:16 is one of the best-known verses in all of Scripture, and for a good reason. Whether you are here this morning and have trusted Jesus for many years, or you are coming into church for the first time in your life, you have likely seen or heard this verse before. It shows up on bumper stickers and poster boards at NFL games with regularity because it is a great summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, I have to admit, that as a preacher on any given Sunday, there is an element of preaching where I want to bring something new, something that will tickle your ears. It is very tempting to try to find a small nugget of information or a tidbit of obscure data to excite those that have read the passage we are looking at a hundred times before, to pander to the desire that our sermons should be unique, deeper, and packed full of so much information that even the oldest and most learned amongst us will be challenged. For a nerd like me, that often sounds like fun. 

It's funny that we can feel that way about sermons, especially around a holiday like Christmas. I imagine in many of your homes there are traditions that might cause anarchy if you suddenly ditched them. It might be a special meal, a particular dessert, a treasured decoration. I think one of these treasured traditions in my family includes some small figurine houses. They are a collection of ceramic houses—fake shops, houses, businesses made in a quaint old-English village style with snow drooping off the roofs and small lights creating a glowing presence inside. My mom gave them to us years ago, and since our kids were young we have set them up on their dressers at Christmas time. As they have gotten older, we don’t have to do that work anymore. They are the first to ask us where those small houses are, and they set them up themselves. I know that falling asleep to the dim light of those houses has become part of the senses and memories of Christmas to my kids. 

Of all the times, we don’t want to be unique at Christmas time. Our entire Advent series—the four weeks leading up to Christmas as we prepare our hearts for this holiday—have been filled with old truths. We started with a Sunday talking about Hope & Promise. How God has been an amazing God and even from the beginning, even when sin and suffering looked like it had won, God provided an amazing hope through a great promise! A son of the woman, her offspring, would come and rescue us. 

It is this great hope through a promise that continues to unfold throughout Scripture as we learn more about this promised offspring of the woman, and all along we learn another lesson: Preparation and Waiting. As God’s people wait and prepare for the arrival of this promised savior, we see that it is the way our God prepares and waits that models most clearly for us how we should wait and prepare. Our God has waited and prepared, not just for a moment or event, but for a person, and we should be waiting and preparing the same way. Our lives, even now, are best prepared for our God when we look to the object of our preparation and waiting—Jesus Christ!

We looked at the response of the magi—the wise men—and saw that they had great Joy at the coming of Christ. And Peace—the kind of peace that we see most clearly in the life of Jesus and that culminates at the cross where Joy meets Peace. This Joy and Peace is truly begun in the coming of the God-man, in a manger, in Bethlehem. 

None of this is new: it is a very old hope and a very old promise. It is the same preparation and waiting that happened for thousands of years before Jesus Christ came and that is now happening thousands of years after he returned to heaven, as we wait for him to come back again. It is a joy and peace we have sung about for many years. 

Perhaps it is because I am getting older, but I find that I treasure these “old” truths even more now. I used to think I would be best served by the newest idea, the most tantalizing token of thought. But now I realize my biggest problem, and maybe it is yours as well, is my forgetfulness—how quickly I lay aside the amazing truths I love for bigger, better idols or the shiniest distraction I can find. The Apostle Paul makes a similar observation about the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2 & 3, and the writer of Hebrews says something similar at the end of Hebrews chapter 5. We are so quick to lay aside the core of our faith in Jesus Christ. We find ourselves tossed “to and fro” by different doctrines because we are no longer rooted in foundational truths of Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:14). 

This Christmas, I pray you see in John 3:16 the amazing love of God, embodied in Jesus Christ, for you.

Gods Love: Amazingly Accompanied

God’s love is central and foundational to our faith and is not an old topic to just pass over. John 3:16 takes us directly to God’s love, but additionally, John 3:16 is packed with so many other amazing statements in such a short verse. God. The World. His Son. Whoever. Belief. Perishing. Eternal Life. It is not just the fact that God loves us that is amazing, but all the aspects that accompany this love. The passage starts this way:

For God… 

First, this is no ordinary love. It is obvious that Jesus is talking about the God of the Old Testament here. The creator, the all-knowing, all-powerful God of all things. The God who created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, who created humanity out of the dust of the ground. This God is not a force or a confluence of natural laws, but a very real and very personal God. He talks to Adam and Eve. He appears to Abraham. He is with his people as they leave Egypt and are in the promised land. He comes to you and me through his Holy Spirit today.

And it is because God is real and personal that our God is also moral. His acts can be categorized in terms of right and wrong, good and bad, and we find he can only be described as unwaveringly righteous, eternally good, amazingly patient, caring, and loving. He is the ultimate relationship we were made for, and why we long so much for exactly what this verse promises. We want to be back in relationship with our God and our creator, to know we are loved, yet we know we have failed and fallen away in sin. Our verse continues on

For God so loved the world… 

Later in this verse it also says “whoever believes.” It is exactly this section of Jesus’s statement that can bring us so much hope, joy, and peace. Could it be that the world, that whoever believes, actually means God is talking about you and me? Jesus himself helps us understand what he means by the term “the world” later in John 7:7 and 14:17. Jesus says:

“The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” (John 7:7 ESV)

and

“the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.” (John 14:17 ESV)

The “world” here is all of fallen humanity. Those who, on our own, hate and despise the good things that God loves. Those who, on our own, don’t believe or trust nor have faith in God. 

It is exactly these people—whoever, the entire world—that Jesus came for. That is incredibly good news for you and me! There is no one who is excluded from the love of God in this statement this morning. No matter what you have done, no matter how far you feel from God, this statement today in John 3:16 is for you. I can confidently stand here and invite each and every one of you into this love of God because he specifically says it is for you! And even more amazing than who God loves, is how he demonstrates that love:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… 

This love of God is demonstrated in what he did—he gave—and what he gave—his son. 

This language of his son has been difficult for many people. Muslims, Mormons, many struggle to understand this idea of God having a son. Let’s be clear, this is not the spiritual byproduct of celestial relationships, nor is it the Holy Spirit of God having sexual relations Mary. John is very clear about this in the very first lines of his Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1–3 ESV)

Jesus is God himself, the second person of our God, who describes himself both as one and as father, son and Holy Spirit. He was there in the beginning. He was with God. He is God. Jesus is the same God who made all things, and he is the one to whom all things are being reconciled. He is described as the “son” of God because, as Hebrews 1:3 says,

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1:3 ESV)

God is one essence and three persons, who enjoy an eternal and perfect relationship with each other. 

It is this God who gives himself to us. It is this God who chooses to be embodied as an embryo. It is this Jesus born in helplessness to Mary. It is this God who lives a very similar life to you and me with all the ups and downs, pains and triumphs. It is also this God who lives a very different life than you and me, in perfect righteousness. It is this God—Jesus—who dies on the cross. Jesus says later in John 10:17–18:

“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”” (John 10:17–18 ESV)

The Father gives and the Son willingly lays down his life that he might bring people—the world, whoever believes—to God. He does it because this is the only way it would happen. 

“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 may have eternal life.” (John 3:13–15 ESV)

It was only if God himself came, if he revealed his perfect nature, and if he was crucified that we might actually know him and know his love. And this love needs to be received:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever Believes... 

All that God requires out of this arrangement is belief. He is looking for people to believe this is who he is and what he has done. Belief in an idea means to embrace the idea as true; with a gift it is to accept the gift with gratefulness and joy, and when belief is in a person, it means to trust them to be what they say and do. Jesus, in John 3:16, is calling us to trust that God is only good and righteous. To trust that he has given himself for sinners. To trust that his Son has dealt with your sins through his righteous life and his death on the cross. 

Jesus talks about this idea of belief with another word in John’s gospel: receive. He says in John 1:11–12:

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” (John 1:11–12 ESV)

When we receive Jesus, we “believe in his name.” We invite him into our life as friend and God and have a relationship with him as his Children. And belief comes with high stakes.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should Not Perish but have Eternal Life. 

To not believe means perishing: death. But with belief comes eternal life, forevermore being with our God in the new Earth and new heavens after his return. 

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36 ESV)

But this entire statement in John 3:16, and God’s plan through Jesus’s birth in the manager that Christmas many years ago, was not with the goal of wrath—in fact, the very opposite. John 3:16 continues on to John 3:17:

“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.” (John 3:17 ESV)

It was for salvation, and a goal of eternal life for all who would believe, that Jesus came. And praise God that he didn’t just come for a short period of time on earth, but he came with power and sent the Holy Spirit that belief might even be possible for us. 

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (John 6:63 ESV)

God has provided his very Spirit that we might find life when our own flesh doesn’t want it. When our desires and passions pull us away from this love from God, his very Spirit is the one who will intercede in our life and draw us back to God in his power. 

God’s Love: Embodied Forever

All of these aspects—a personal and moral God engaged with us, a God who gave himself for us, a God who offers this gift to the entire world, a God who is looking for belief for the sake of eternal life, and who has given himself to thwart death even today in the power of his Spirit—all of these point to this one moment in history, this moment where Jesus came as a baby in the manger, as God defining love for us. Christmas is one massive flag in the sand, a remembrance moment of how God defines his love for you and me. Later, in our Bible, John unpacks Jesus’s statement this way:

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 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 God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:7–12 ESV)

God is love! Love is not an external thing that God agreed with, rather, what he does defines for us what love is. And John says here in 1 John that love is seen in God in Jesus. He was sent, made manifest among us, that you and I might be loved! Love isn’t that we love God back for this, rather, love is that God decided to do this for me and you, people who did not deserve this amazing act in our life. 

When you wonder if you are loved, you should remember Christmas. It is here, where God and flesh unite, that we find the perfect embodied picture of love. No one walks around with the right to say, “God doesn’t love me because _____ (fill in the blank.)” Because I have an incurable disease. Because I wasn’t born into a better family. Because I love things that he tells me I shouldn’t love. No, God says you are loved no matter your situation, no matter your sins, no matter your physical pains nor even intellectual struggles with him...because of Jesus. 

It is this old story that we repeat again and again to ourselves. It is like the sweet smell of your favorite dessert cooking in the oven, like the crackle of a warm fire in the fireplace—it is the beautiful hope and promise of God, peace and joy found in a man, come true in embodied love after many years of preparation and waiting. What makes Christmas so sweet is that we know the trajectory of the God-Man born there that amazing day and described in John 3:16. Jesus Christ came to love us—all the way to and through the cross to resurrection. 

Benediction

May

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24–26 ESV)