three:sixteen
this changes everything
A Message Manuscript by David Drury
Click here for the response
blog
This message was delivered to the
people at the lobby, Celebration, & 59 West worship gatherings at Spring
Lake Wesleyan Church on 25 June 2006.
Some of the wording used here is
intended for a life audience because of this.
Adjust my wording as appropriate for yourself as a reader of the
manuscript.
There was a bride and groom who wanted to add a great
scripture verse to their wedding cake once.
They gave the reference, 1 John 4:18, to the baker. That verse, if you look it up, says, “There
is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” That’s a nice little verse for a
wedding. However, the baker
unfortunately got his books of John understandably mixed up, and so he put John
4:18 on the cake, which when they unveiled it at the reception now
unfortunately read, “You have had five husbands and the one you have now is not
your husband.”[1]
Today we will be taking a look at a verse in the gospel of
John, not to be confused with 1st John. However, there won’t be much confusion on
what verse we’re talking about, because this is the most famous verse in the
entire Bible. Martin Luther called this
verse, “the heart of the Bible—the gospel in miniature.”[2] One preacher has called it “the greatest
sentence ever written.” When Billy
Graham was asked by a TV reporter what the basic message of all his preaching
was, he quoted this verse and said, "I think [that verse] sums it up,
which is known to almost everybody… That's the sum total of what I
preach."[3]
The Bible in miniature, the greatest sentence, the sum total
of the gospel that they are speaking about is of course John 3:16.
Our first reaction when we hear of this verse might be to
casually think “been there—done that.”
Since many of us can quote the verse verbatim, we might think it has
nothing new or ground shattering to say to us.
It may seem “entry level” to us.
Please allow me challenge you today with that
assumption. So often our lives seem like
they are missing something. Our way of
life seems empty. Our jobs can be
boring. Our families become broken. Our emotions spin out of control. Our spiritual lives start to drift. Perhaps the real problem when we come face to
face with John 3:16 is not that we have heard it all before—but that we’ve
never fully and completely thought through what it means for us today.
And don’t think that you can say, “I’m a religious
type. I’ve got it pretty well
together. I’m sitting in a church right
now as you say this to me—so I must not be all that bad.”
Take a look at the third chapter of John and you’ll see that
you’re not so unlike the one Jesus said this sentence to in the first
place. It’s Nicodemus. If anyone was religious, it was Nicodemus. He was a hard-line religious type who
followed the letter of the law—a Pharisee.
And he was a respected member of the Jewish ruling council—the
Sanhedrin. Jesus even notes that
Nicodemus is someone who instructs their whole nation in the ways of God—he
calls him
Even taking all this religiousness into account Jesus still
thought Nicodemus needed to hear this greatest sentence—the gospel in
miniature. So on that cool night as
Nicodemus came to try to understand the message of Jesus, he bent over in the
conversation and laid it all out there for him: “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.”
This… changes…everything. Say those words with me: this… changes… everything.
It really does. This
one sentence changes everything. For everyone. So my fundamental question for you today is:
has it really changed everything for you? Really changed everything? Really changed?
Really?
Let’s break down this verse and see.
For God…
This greatest of all sentences
starts, as all things, with God. Tozer tells us, “What comes into your mind
when the name ‘God’ is mentioned is the most important thing
about you.”[4] I could ask you about your life, your family,
your work, your home, and your friends: all this and I still wouldn’t know the
most important thing about you. I would
need to know what first comes into your mind when the name “God” is
mentioned. That’s my question for
you. What are you thinking?
Perhaps you’re merely thinking that
God exists. You believe he exists. I need to remind you that few things are more
common. A poll two years ago showed that
92% of Americans believe in the existence of God.[5] And how is that working out for us? There’s far more to this question than just
believing that God exists. It’s far more
important to know what you think God
is like.
Some people believe that there may
be a God, but we can’t really know anything about any Supreme Being.[6] Others believe there is a Supreme Being who
created the universe, but this God is distant and uninvolved in our present
world.[7] Some (like those who believe the Gnosticism
espoused in The DaVinci Code) believe
there is a God but that this God is in fact evil.[8] Many people today believe there are many gods
and you should choose one religion and earnestly worship that one god and
devote your life to it and not get into other people’s business.[9] Some believe everything is made up of one
essential essence, principle, substance or energy and you might call everything God, including individuals
they say God is all and all is God.[10] Others believe Muhammad was God's[11]
final prophet and we are to worship Allāh and follow Muhammad’s ethical
code. Some others believe in multiple
gods who are all equals.[12]
If your definitions of what God is
like matches any of these, then you don’t believe in the definition of God
delivered by Jesus in this greatest sentence.
In reality John 3:16 is the best definition of who God is anywhere. We should mail it in to Webster. If you want to know more about God… this
verse is one short definition of…
And who wouldn’t want to know what Jesus Christ—whatever you
already believe about him—said about who God is, what he did, and why he did
it. Jesus tells us in this sentence that
God
changed everything. Has who God
is changed everything for you?
For God…
So loved…
Jesus goes on in John 3:16 to define
God with two key qualities and one key action. The key qualities here are that God is loving
and giving. The key action comes later
and is a result of these two key qualities of God.
God’s overwhelming quality is
love. If you had to define God’s
essence, the closest bet would be love.
This helps those of us that have a somewhat Christian view of who God
is, but get off track into thinking that God the Father needed to be convinced
to forgive or pacified in his anger.
It’s not as though the Father is a mean, exacting, punishing Judge that
Jesus, the lovey-dovey, best buddy hippie wannabe set everything right. From time to time I slip into this error, in
thinking that Jesus has something for me that is unique from the Father or the
Spirit. My theologian
brother has corrected me on this, instructing me that “whatever you can say
about the Son can be said about the Father except that the Son is the
Son.” So their relationship is their
only key difference in essence. God is
love, if you haven’t heard before.
1
John 4:7-9 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes
from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love. This is how God
showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we
might live through him.”[13] Doesn’t this sound familiar? This passages is definitely the most similar
passage in the entire Bible to John 3:16.
It includes two of the exact same concepts as the John 3 conversation
with Nicodemus: first, the idea of being “born of God” is there in verse 7, and
second, the idea of God’s love being shown by sending his “one and only Son
into the world” is there. This further
defines God for us. While it’s our nature to love ourselves…
its God’s nature to love us. This
is who God has always been. He has
always been a loving God. You might say
that the incarnation is simply the
crescendo to the symphony that is God’s love. He not only loved us, he so loved us that this amazing world-changing act was in his
nature. God’s love changes everything. Has
his love changed everything for you?
For God…
So loved…
The world…
Who is “the world?”
From the research I’ve done on this word I can say with confidence that
Jesus is using to “the world” to refer to the inhabitants of planet earth in
general.[14] It’s the same kind of figure of speech I
might use in saying: “For me and my house will serve the Lord!” By this I don’t mean, me and the bricks and
wood that make up my dwelling. I mean my
family. In the same way Jesus is
expounding on the love of God for all those who live in the world, without
distinction. As I’ve been reading what
others say I was struck by one commentator who says “It was the world that God so loved. It was not a nation; it was not the good
people; it was not only the people who loved him; it was the world. The unlovable and the unlovely, the lonely
who have no one else to love them, the man who loves God and the man who never
thinks of God, the man who rests the love of God and the man who spurns the
love of God—all are included in this vast inclusive love, the love of God.”[15] I like to think of it this way: God’s love
extends to those people I have a hard time loving. Again, where I am limited in my love God’s
love is instead unlimited.
Romans
5:6-8 sheds some light on this issue for us.
Paul writes, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still
powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a
righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This demonstrated love of God is completely
unlimited by your own goodness, by your own religiousity, by your deeds. God loves you despite it all: good or
bad. So this unlimited love of God is what gives
me motivation to show and tell others about his love. I don’t need to wonder and worry about
whether God loves people—even the ones I have a hard time loving. I can be confident that if someone I meet is
an inhabitant of planet earth (and so far all the people I’ve met have been)
then God loves them.[16]
You see, God’s view
of the world changes everything. Has
God’s view of you changed how you view yourself?
For God…
So loved…
The world…
That he gave…
The power of John 3:16—the power of this gospel in
miniature—is not in some special meaning of the word “love.” People throw around the idea of loving everything from their iPod to
their car. The power of this verse and
the love of God is in the action of God
to back up the love. He “so loved” that he gave his only son to die, which is the most extreme example of love
we could even invent.[17] If you’re wondering how much God loves you
know this: It’s the quality of the gift that defines the quantity of the love. The quality of this gift is
unparalleled. Pastor Dennis
Jackson mentioned to me this week as we were discussing this point, that
the value of something is defined by what people will pay. Think of what God paid for you. The quantity of that love is immeasurable.
God doesn’t just sent you a postcard from heaven saying,
“Love ya—mean it!” God the Son comes to
planet earth himself and gives himself up as a free gift of grace for you. John 10:17-18 says, “The reason my Father
loves me is that I lay down my life--only to 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 authority to take it up again.
This command I received from my Father." Jesus gave up himself. It was the gift of a Father, and a willing
simultaneous gift of the Son, Jesus Christ.
That’s why the last thing Jesus did as recorded in John 19:30 was to
give up his spirit: “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is
finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
God’s gift changes
everything. Have you been impressed by this
immense gift to receive it?
For God…
So loved…
The world…
That he gave…
His one and only Son…
Let’s remember the context of this
conversation again. Recall with me that
Jesus is talking to a deeply religious man who is curious about Jesus’
teachings. He’s coming at night for a
chat about his message. Jesus and
Nicodemus are alike in so many ways.
Both Jews, both devout, both teachers, both with followers. But one major difference between Nicodemus
and Jesus is in Nicodemus’ limited view of who Jesus is. You see, Nicodemus in verse 2 of John 3 tells
Jesus that “we know you are a teacher who has come from God.” But Jesus is going to change what Nicodemus
thinks he knows, isn’t he? The reality
is that Jesus is so much more than a teacher.
Again this goes back to the question of what you believe God is
like. Often people believe that Jesus
was an incredible Teacher, but miss that what he taught was that he was the incredible Savior, the son of
God. Jesus says that God so loved the
world that he gave himself. This verse
not only defines God the Father it declares the true identity of Jesus.
We come across this verse together
the Sunday after Father’s Day. I would
do anything for my kids—really. I know
that I was fundamentally changed when I had kids. My wife and I had to choose to love each
other, and part of marriage is we wake up every day and choose to love each
other, even when it’s hard. But when I
had kids I experienced a different and beautiful kind of love. I did not choose to love my kids. I couldn’t choose it. It was something biological in me. I just did.
It was the only true love at first sight I’ve had—and it lasts
forever. God’s Son is loved by the
Father in this way—and yet they both entered into this exchange for our souls
willingly.
Robert Coleman tells us the story of a boy named Johnny
whose sister needed a blood transfusion because she had the same disease Johnny
had two years before. Johnny had
recovered from the disease and her single chance to do the same was to get a
transfusion from someone who had beaten the disease themselves. The two kids had the same rare blood type, so
in every way possible Johnny was the ideal donor. The doctor asked Johnny, “Would you give your
blood to Mary?” Johnny hesitated while
thinking. He looked like he was going to
cry. Then Johnny somehow told the
doctor, “Sure, for my sister.”
The two kids laid side by side on two hospital beds as a
nurse painfully inserted a needle into Johnny’s arm. The blood flowed from Johnny’s disease
conquering body into Mary’s pale, thin and dying body. Johnny watched the blood flow. When everything was nearly complete, Johnny
broke the silence in the room by saying something. “Doctor, when do I die?”
The doctor realized in that moment that Johnny thought
giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. In that little moment this boy had made his
great decision to sacrifice himself for her.
Of course, he didn’t have to in the end—and I’m sure the doctor loved
giving him that news.
But for us—we all have this disease called sin, everyone one
of us. We need a spiritual blood
transfusion from someone who has overcome that sin-disease. Someone with the blood of victory in their
veins. Jesus is the ideal donor. And he willingly gives his life for us to
live. The difference between Jesus and
this heart-warming little boy is that Jesus really did have to die for
us. The son of God really, truly, died a
physical and spiritual death so that we might live.
For God… so loved… the world… that he gave… his one and only
Son…
God’s one and only Son
changes everything. Has God’s Son changed your life
forever?
I think there are three major ways that John 3:16 changes
everything for us:
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If you are reading
this online and are making a commitment right now in one of these three areas I
invite you to confidentially share it with me at David@DruryWriting.com
_________
© 2006 by David Drury
[1] Source of illustration: From Richard Smith in the
message “Reclaiming John 3:16”
[2] As quoted by Bible.org
[3] Taken from CBS interview with Billy
Graham by Harry Smith
[4] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (Carlisle: St. Louis, 1994) p. 11
[5] Source: 2004 FOX News poll and
report at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,99945,00.html
[11] In Arabic the word God is simply pronounced “Allāh,”
thus when Musims say “Allāh” they are simply saying “God” in their own
language, much like someone who speaks Spanish will pray to “Dios.” This relates to this point because it’s all
about defining what God is like which
is what John 3:16 does for us. It’s not
enough to say you simply “believe in God.”
I do not worship the same God as the Muslims, even though we both pray
to “God” in our own language. So, if I
was an Arab and Arabic was the language I spoke, I might pray to “Allāh”
but it would still be praying to a very different God than Muslims pray to
(note the difference between an Arab and a Muslim—they are not the same
thing). I don’t believe the Islamic
understanding of God is true and complete as it totally violates the essential
gospel found here in John 3:16. For
instance, a fundamental creed of the Koran states that “God does not beget”
which is a direct confrontation (using the available translations of scripture
at the time) of John 3:16. Ironically, begotten is not even the accurate
translation of the word, because even though ‘one and only’ (ton mongene) is sometimes translated
‘only begotten’ it is misleading because the text emphasizes uniqueness, not
‘begottenness’. To beget means to cause
to exist or occur; produce. One means
being a single entity, unit, object, or living being; and Only means
exclusively; solely. Standing alone by
reason of superiority or excellence. So
the idea of “son-ness” of Christ does not infer that God the Father Created the
son like I might create my son. Instead,
it signified the relationship of
Jesus to the Father—the relationship of a Son to a Father. I think this line of thinking is perhaps an
interesting one to dialogue with open Muslims about because of their interest
in discussing the differences between the Koran and the Christian New
Testament. If I ever live in the middle
east or, say,
[12] Polytheism (including
some forms of Hinduism and other eastern religions, although others would say
the concept of “God” is irrelevant to these Karmic traditions.)
[13] I don’t have the space or time to go
into this in detail, but I think this Lewis’s quote is a fitting connection to
this 1 John 4 text: “On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to
think about than our love for Him.” - C. S. Lewis
[14] Bullinger, E. W. Figures of Speech
Used in the Bible: Explained and Illustrated.
[15] Barclay, p129
[16] If you’re interested in one of my
pet philosophical discussions here then drop
me an e-mail. The issue is this: if
God loves the inhabitants of planet earth and sent Jesus to die for us, then
what, theologically, would we do in the future if intelligent life is
discovered on other planets. This is a
fascinating topic that is obviously totally hypothetical in our lifetimes… but
it helps us better define what John 3:16 really means here. By the way, if you have interest in this
discussion then C.S. Lewis’ “Space Trilogy” science fiction series is really
worth your time. It’s really much better
than the Chronicles of Narnia, in my opinion.
Start with Out of the Silent
Planet and let’s get the discussion going on this one.
[17] Dongell, p72