I've always loved that song.
I've heard Denise sing it a number of times. One of the things I
like about it the most is that it tells us the truth of the
gospel. That everything, I mean everything,
that God requires of us, He has provided in Christ. And provided
from the Lord Jesus Christ. So thankful for that. Now I want
to bring a message today from John chapter 3 verse 16. I've almost entitled this message,
John 3.16, and perhaps I should just leave it at that. But it's
really, the title I've given this message is, Christ's Love
for His Own, or God's Love for His Own. And so I want to just
read this text of scripture to you, in John chapter 3. We could spend several sermons
on this one text of scripture, I'm sure. John 3, verse 16, For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life. That's an amazing text
of scripture, isn't it? And most people in the world
have heard something about it, have heard that verse. They've
heard it read, or seen it on a billboard, or seen a reference
to it, at the very least. And they've probably heard many
people use a piece of that verse. But I want you to realize that
God gave this verse The Lord Jesus Christ spoke it Himself.
He gave this verse to us in the context of John 3. This verse
is not meant for us to use as a justification or a warrant
to tell every person on earth, God loves you, because that's
just simply not the truth of Scripture. And I'm not here to
use this verse in order to make a theological case for God's
limited love, but I'm here to try to explain this scripture
from the context and from the rest of scripture, the context
of this one chapter and the context of the whole Bible. So it's not
meant to serve as a theological battleground, which is what has
happened to a great deal over a long period of time. But this verse is meant to show
us the love of God, the foundation of our eternal salvation. And
that's why I want to expound this verse to you, to show how
building up to this, the Lord Jesus Christ showed Nicodemus,
exposed him, exposed his condition, and revealed his great need and
the impossibility on his part to do anything to meet that need,
in order that he would prepare him to see that what was required
was the work of God. And then at the bottom of that,
the bottom of the work of God is the foundation of it all,
the love of God in Christ for his own. So I want to give you
that as the outline at the outset. John chapter 3 is exposing our
sinful condition. Nicodemus, Jesus showed in verse
3, was blind to the kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God,
remember, is the revelation of the Gospel in the hearts of sinners.
Remember that? Luke chapter 17, verse 20 and
21, Jesus told the Pharisees and those around, He said, The
Kingdom of God does not come by observation. The Kingdom of
God is within you. And the only way the Kingdom
of God can be within us is if the Spirit of the King, the Spirit
of Christ, dwells in us by His Gospel. according to the will
of God. And that's the Kingdom of God.
It's in us, first of all. And then the Kingdom of God is
also that body of people, the brethren, the children of Christ,
born to Him. born to God, given to Christ
to save. All those in whom the Spirit
of God dwells, who He has given this new birth to and created
spiritually, made the children of God through this process of
the new birth, all of they are called the Kingdom of God. And
so the revelation of Christ in the heart of a single sinner
is the Kingdom of God in you. But the collection of all those
people, given that grace from God, is the kingdom of God as
a body. They're the body of Christ, the
church of God. And then the fulfillment of that
kingdom in its ultimate sense is also referred to as the kingdom
of God. In Matthew 25, verse 34, Jesus
tells the sheep on His right hand, He said, enter into the
kingdom prepared for you of my Father from the foundation of
the world." So the kingdom of God is also the ultimate conclusion
and consummation of the work of God throughout time. that
He purposed from eternity and brings to fulfillment at the
end of time and carries on throughout eternity, which is Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, joined to His people in everlasting bliss and
glory. in a redeemed universe with heavens
and earth made new because Christ reigns as king and has given
all things to his people because of the purchase of his own blood.
All of that is the kingdom of God. Now, Jesus tells Nicodemus,
your condition is such that you can't see that kingdom. unless
you're born of God." So he was blind. And secondly, he tells
him his condition was that he could not enter that kingdom,
couldn't enter it at all, without the Spirit of God, because he
was outside of it, alienated by his sin. And he tells him
all these things to show that Entering the Kingdom of God and
seeing the Kingdom of God is not by physical birth. What we
are physically by our physical birth is flesh only. And flesh is a corrupt and sickening
thing to God. God has to give us His Spirit.
So, it's not by physical birth, it's not by our birth to Abraham,
nor is it by the knowledge that Nicodemus had. He was a man who
was highly respected among men, the best that men could produce.
And Jesus holds him up to show us that the very best of men
in this world the most intellectual, the most religious, the most
reasonable kind of man, because he seemed like a reasonable man,
was blind and outside the kingdom of God. In fact, he was confused
in his condition. He did not know anything spiritually,
and all the questions he asked showed that he was confused.
He was confused in his mind, and until he realized that confusion
and cried out, how can these things be? He had believed up
to that point that he was still able to see. which was the Lord's
grace to bring him to that, exposing his condition. And Jesus went
on to show that it wasn't his own obedience, not his knowledge
of the law, not his obedience to the law. Because Jesus said,
we speak what we do know, and you received not our testimony.
He didn't understand the earthly things. He didn't understand
the Old Testament because it spoke of Christ and his redeeming
work. But he didn't understand the
spiritual things that those earthly things pointed to. And not only
that, but what Jesus said to him, he didn't believe. So he
was an unbeliever too. And Jesus, at the end of his
breaking Nicodemus down and humbling him, showed that he was no different.
He was in the same condition as those children of Israel in
the wilderness, bitten by the serpents because they spoke against
God and against Moses and despised the bread that represented Christ
come down from heaven, who gave his life and spilled his blood
for the life of his people. So that's our condition. And
our need is this birth from God, a creation of a spirit within
us. We need to be raised from the
dead spiritually. We're dead in our sins and God
has to do that. Our condition is such that we
can't help ourselves. Our need is so great that only
God can meet it. So that the context of John 3.16
is our horrible condition before God. our eternal and spiritual
need, and our absolute helplessness, our dependence upon God to meet
this need in Christ. And then we saw in John 3.13
how God met that need. He chose from eternity His Son
to be the Son of Man, and in time sent Him into the world
to take on our nature, and laid upon Him the obligations of His
people as the mediator. And the Lord Jesus Christ not
only fulfilled our obligations for righteousness, by his obedience
to his father in his own death, but he bore our sins in his own
body on the tree. He himself, as the high priest,
confessed our sins over himself as the Lamb of God, as his own
sins, and he bore the guilt and shame of them and endured the
wrath of God against him for our sins. This is what John 3
and verse 13 and 14 and 15 speak about. So he says in John 3,
if you remember, in 14, Jesus said, As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. Faith is not the cause of our
birth. Faith is not the cause of being
born again. Faith is the result of being
born again. John 1, 12, and 13 says, As many
as received him, to them gave he power, or authority, to be
called the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And then he underscores how they
came to believe by saying in verse 13, Which were born. their
faith was a result of their birth, and that birth is not of blood,
not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of
God. And so here in John 3 and verse
14, the faith which is compared to looking
upon the serpent lifted up on the pole, the faith that looks
to Christ crucified and finds in Him all that God requires
of me and comes to God by the blood of Jesus Christ. That faith
is itself the gift of God, the result of the Lord Jesus Christ
being exalted to heaven's throne and giving gifts to His people.
It's that work that we just heard sung about. Every grace that
God requires, He provides. He gives it to you. Don't come
with your faith. Let God's gift of faith bring
you to Christ. Jesus said, no man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me draw him. And that drawing
is God's gift by His Spirit where He gives us life and faith through
His Word, the preaching of His Word. So that's the first thing,
is the context of John 3.16. It shows us our utter dependence
upon the work of God from first to last in our salvation. And
that's why Jesus starts from the end, from the experience
that we have. First, we have to be born. We have to be born,
but that birth is the result of Christ's redeeming work and
His exalted place in glory where He sends His Spirit to His people
to give them this life and faith that He earned for them and purchased
them. And also, he shows us that the result of his work is the
Spirit of God given to us to believe him. And in believing
him, It gives evidence to the fact that we were born of God,
as we read in 1 John 5, verse 1, a couple weeks ago, that whoever
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. We can't believe
that unless God gives us this new birth and creates us spiritually. So faith is the result of Christ's
redeeming work and the result of God's Spirit in us, giving
us that faith. And so John 3.16, as we just
read, for God so loved the world. He's telling us, he's summarizing
everything that he said here. He says, the people sinned against
God in the wilderness. And the people spoke against
God. They spoke against Moses. They despised that bread God
sent from heaven, which typified Christ. And so what did God do?
Well, He sent serpents to bite them. They were dying under the
curse of God. And they were dying without a
remedy. They had no way to get out of the death that they were
under. Many of them had already died, and many more were dying. And so what did they do? They
cried. And they looked to the law. They
said, Moses, what do we do? We're dying. And what did God
say through that law? Well, God required Moses to lift
up a serpent on the pole, And that represents the Law of God.
Sinners come to the Law expecting salvation there. What does the
Law say? Go to Christ. You have to look
to Him. Don't look in yourself. You haven't
got anything there. Don't bring anything. There's
nothing you can bring. You're dead in sins. Look to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Look away from all that you are.
Look away from everything that may be called yours, and look
to Christ and all that He is, and everything that is called
His, that's given to us through Him, our mediator. So God required
Moses to lift up a serpent. God required it. The Lord Jesus
Christ wasn't offered to men. Jesus didn't sacrifice himself
to give himself as a sacrifice to men. He's the high priest
who offered himself as the Lamb of God to God for the sins of
the people. It says in Hebrews chapter 5,
every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men
in things pertaining to God that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices
for sins. So Christ offered himself not
to man, he offered himself to God. But he offered himself to
God for the sins of the people. And there were specific people,
and there were specific sins. The high priest laid his hand
upon the head of that scapegoat in Leviticus chapter 16 verse
22 and confessed over that the head of that goat, all the sins
of the children of Israel, putting them, putting their sins on the
head of that goat. And of course that goat represented
himself as the Lamb of God. Jesus Christ confessed our sins
as his own, every one of those sins. How did He do that? I believe that He did. I don't
know how He did it, but He did it. He took their sins in His
own body. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree, the cross. And so He bore them. God required
this. He required Christ to bear the
sins of His people. He required Him to bear their
curse. And He required God's law to curse the Lord Jesus Christ
on the cross. That's why He died. He commanded
Moses to tell the people to look to Christ, just as God's law
testifies of the Lord Jesus Christ crucified, lifted up on the cross,
cursed by God for the sins of His people, and therefore He's
given glory. God raised Jesus from the dead.
He exalted Him to heaven's throne, and He gave Him a people that
the Lord Jesus Christ might give them eternal life. Remember John
17? In his high priestly prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the
high priest and as the king, prays his Father for his people,
for his church in John 17. Really, if you read John 17,
it shows you the prayer of the Lord Jesus
Christ for the kingdom that he had purchased with his own blood,
the kingdom over which he ruled in heaven because he redeemed
them by his precious blood. He's praying for them, those
that God had given him. And he says in John 17, 2, he
says, that you have given me, the Son of God, the Son of Man,
power over all flesh in order that he might give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given him." Jesus Christ gives eternal
life to as many as his Father has given him because God gave
him power as the Son of God and Son of Man, the mediator over
all flesh. And so we see this, that the
Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and exalted to
Heaven's throne for His work on the cross as our mediator,
in order that He would give eternal life to as many as God gave to
Him in that covenant of grace. And so Christ from His throne
sends His Spirit from the Father to give sinners life in a look
at the Lord Jesus Christ who was cursed and rose again and
who was exalted to heaven's throne in triumph over our sins, over
death, over the grave, over Satan, and over this world, even over
our sinful nature. This is what John chapter 3 is
about. And verse 16 tells us that this
was all because of the love of God. The love of God. Now, this
immediately shows us that John 3.16 and the love of God cannot
be understood except by sinners. Do you see this? John 3.16 says
that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
What does it mean that God gave His Son? Well, in 1 John chapter
4 it tells us this is the way we know the love of God. You
know, some of us, and I do this myself, I tell people, I love
you. And I do, I think I do, as best
as I know, but I also know there's a mixture. of insincerity in
that, so that a lot of what I say could be classified as sentimental.
But God's love is not sentimental. The love of God is not sentimental
at all. God's love accomplishes something. God's love gives something. And God's love is not even known
apart from this gift. We can't know the love of God
apart from this. So look at John chapter 4 verse
9. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us. How do we know the love of God?
This is how. Because that God sent his son, his only begotten
son, into the world that we might live through him. God sent his
son into the world for a purpose. What was that purpose? That we
might live through Him. Does that mean that there's a
possibility that He sent His Son into the world and that we
don't live by Him? No, there's no possibility. If
it was God's will that by sending His Son we live by Him, then
you can know for certainty that we will live and we will live
because of Christ. And how does that happen? Verse
10. Herein is love. This is love. This is the definition of it.
This is the way we know it. Not that we love God. You can't understand love by
looking at how we love one another. But that God loved us. and sent
his son for this purpose, to be the propitiation for our sins."
A propitiation means a sacrifice given to God. And we see here
that this was a sacrifice that God required It was offered by
Christ to God for our sins, to make satisfaction to God's justice,
and so that God could appease His own wrath in holiness and
injustice for our sins, in the blood of His own Son. That's
propitiation. God appeased His own wrath and
took away His own wrath by making satisfaction for our sins in
the blood of His Son. That's propitiation. So in John
3.16 it says that God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son. It means He gave Him in order
to bear away the sins of His people. in satisfaction to His
justice, that He might take away His wrath and lavish upon them
all the blessings of His grace and His love." This is what it
means when God gave His Son. And He did this in order that
He might give them life. So we see first of all that God's
love here can only be understood by sinners. If you're not a sinner,
if God hasn't convinced you like He did Nicodemus about your condition,
about your eternal need, about the impossibility of you meeting
that need, and about the requirement that God Himself alone can actually
meet that need, and that Christ is the one who meets it in His
own blood and by His own Spirit, sending Him into our heart, giving
us repentance, as we read about in Hosea chapter 2 and Hosea
chapter 14. He says in Hosea 14.4, I will
love them freely Freely, God loves his people
without any cause found in them. God's love does not depend upon
the objects of his love, not on what he finds in us in any
way. God's love depends on nothing in us. Freely, it means without
cause found in us, but for causes found in God alone. And he says,
I will love them without a cause found in them. Freely. because
His wrath is turned away from Him, from the Lord Jesus Christ.
He turned away that wrath in Him, and therefore, our turning,
our believing, our faith, and our hope, and our love, these
gifts of God are given to us out of God's grace and love towards
us in Christ. They're given to us because a
true and complete and perfect satisfaction has been made. Righteousness
has been fulfilled. We've been justified in the blood
of Christ. From Romans 5 verse 9 and 19. And because of that, God gives
us this grace of His Spirit, and with Him, faith and love
and everything else. And so the love of God is the
foundation for all of this. And God's love gives, and we
can't understand it except as sinners. And it is as sinners
that we see and know the love of God in Christ. I want to talk about this next
part here in the verse, God so loved the world, the world. Why does He say here that God
loved the world? Why does God say that He loved
the world here? And then He goes on, He says,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. Why does He say whosoever? I know that most people in understanding
this word here, world, that they would say, God said world because
God loves everybody. And they say because the word
world can't leave anyone out. And a lot of people are motivated
to say that because they think if it means here that God loves
anyone less than everybody in the world, that it's going to
somehow leave out some people from being saved. And so they
say, well, we have to make the word world mean everybody or
some people will be left out of salvation. And so they go
on that way. But is that really what the Bible
is teaching here? Is God's love to every person
in this world? Does God love everybody in the
world? And it says here that because
of His love, He gave His only begotten Son. Did God give His
only begotten Son for every person in this world? Did Jesus die
for everyone? Did God love everybody and Jesus
die for everybody in the world? That's the question. If not,
why did God use this word, world, here? Well, again, you have to
look at the context. Not only of John chapter 3, but
the entire Bible. What did Nicodemus think when
he came to Jesus? We know what he thought. How
do we know? Because of what Jesus said. Jesus
knew his heart. Remember, he knew what was in
man. Nicodemus didn't ask Jesus, how
can I see and enter the kingdom of God? He thought he was in
it. Jesus had to correct his mistaken notions. And he had
to reveal to him the truth, which was a gracious revelation. But
everything Jesus said was to counter the false notions Nicodemus
held. And so he first starts out, it's
not by your birth to Abraham. It's not by your physical birth
at all. What you receive from your parents is at best flesh. It's not spirit. There's no spirit
of life in you. You need to be born. You need
to be conceived and birthed by the Spirit of God. You need to
be created spiritually. You need to be made God's child.
And that's something you cannot do because you're flesh. And
so that's the first notion that Nicodemus had, is that being
born to Abraham would help. And of course, he also thought
that he understood the law so that his knowledge of the law
enabled him to enter the kingdom of God and see it. He also was
a teacher of the law, so he thought that because he could teach sinners
about God's law, that he himself must be in the kingdom of God,
his knowledge of the law. He also thought he was able to
reason, because he asked Jesus these questions, trying to reason
through how he could be born again, how he could enter heaven,
but not his reasoning, not his knowledge, not his law-keeping,
because he was disobedient. Not even his faith, because he
was an unbeliever. Do you know that no man has faith
apart from the gift of God? Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 says,
By grace you are saved, through faith, and that, that faith,
is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Faith is not of
us. Faith is not of any of us. It's
by nature, we don't have faith. Romans 11.32 says, God has concluded
them all in unbelief. Not only the entire nation of
Israel, but all men are concluded in unbelief, and that He might
have mercy upon all, all of His people in Christ. And so we don't
have faith, and yet, God says we're saved through faith, and
He tells us that faith is the gift of God. He says not all
men have faith, but in Titus 1.1 He says it's the faith of
God's elect. So faith is unique to God's elect. In 2 Thessalonians 3.2 He says
not all men have faith. So not all men are God's elect,
and not all men have faith in Christ. But we learn in Acts
18.27 that they believe through grace. Because God's gift of
faith is a gift of His grace. And in Acts 13.48, God says that
as many as were preordained to eternal life, they believed. So faith is the result of God's
foreordination, His predestinating grace. So faith is not of us. It's not the result of what we
do. We don't bring it to God. God gives it to us and it's a
result of the new birth. And so we believe because we're
born again. And so when Jesus says here the
word world here, he's talking about, in contrast to what Nicodemus
thought, he's talking about not just those who are born of Abraham,
Not just those who know the law, or teach the law, or try to keep
the law. Not just the Jews, but the Gentiles
also. The word world is showing how
that in the New Testament the huge mystery that was unfolded
and the great emphasis of the preaching of the gospel was that
not only the Jews, but the Gentiles, the elect out of Jews and Gentiles,
make up the kingdom of God. We just read in Psalm 87, before
we started, how that this man and that one would be born of
her, born of the city of God, out of Egypt, out of Babylon,
out of Philistia, out of Tyre, out of Ethiopia, out of all these
places on the earth. God would call His people by
His Spirit, conceive them, and birth them spiritually, and bring
them into the Kingdom of God. And so the word world underscores
what Revelation 5-9 says. Thou hast redeemed us out of
every kindred, tongue, people, and nation by Thy blood. You
see, it's out of the world. It doesn't leave out any nation. In Galatians 3.27, it says that
its circumcision doesn't avail anything. It's not the Jew, it's
not the Gentile, it's not the bond, it's not the slave, it's
not the male, it's not the female, it's not the circumcised or the
uncircumcised. It's what we are in Christ. Let
me read that to you in Galatians 3.27. He says, As many of you
as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, in verse
28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond
nor free, there is neither, not slave, not free men, neither
male nor female, for you are all one in Christ." There's no
distinction. In Christ, we're all sinners.
In Christ, we're saved by God's grace through the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're given the Spirit of God
And that's the only thing, all those things that God has done
for us makes us part of this kingdom. And so when he says
God loved the world, he's talking about the fact that there's no
distinction. God is not a respecter of persons. But it's not saying that God's
love is universal. Because we know God doesn't love
every man. Isn't that true? How do you know
that? Can you help me? Can you help me understand that
from scripture? Well, I want you to see how that God doesn't
love every person in the Bible, and that Jesus did not die for
every person in the Bible, in order that you might understand
that God's love is distinguishing. And we need to understand that
because if God's love is not distinguishing, if God's love
is not saving, if God's love is not enough, without any consideration
of me and what I am, if it's not enough to overcome every
barrier that I myself bring, and my sin brings, and my sinful
nature, and my sinful deeds, and thoughts, and words, and
everything. If God's love is not enough, then I have no hope. But God's love has got to be
enough in order for a sinner to be saved. That's why I say
John 3.16 cannot be understood by anyone except a sinner. A
sinner knows in his heart that God's love has got to be enough
to save me without any contribution from me. And so we want to understand,
does God really love everybody in the world? Well, the answer
is no. But I want to show you through
scripture a few of these things. First of all, look at Luke chapter
15. And I won't be able to read all
of this, but there's three cases in Luke chapter 15. Remember
Jesus told a parable. He told a parable of a shepherd
and a lost sheep. He told a parable of a woman
and her lost coin. And he told a parable of a father
and his prodigal son. Prodigal means wasteful. And
so, I wanted you to notice from Luke 15 that in all these cases,
that the sheep belonged to the shepherd before the sheep was
lost. Did you notice that from Luke
15? This sheep was lost. It belonged to the shepherd.
1 in 99. And it was lost. And it belonged to the shepherd.
That's why the shepherd went after it. He found his sheep,
which was lost. It was his sheep before it was
lost, wasn't it? The woman lost one of her ten
coins. But the coin was hers. But she
lost it, and then she found it. And the boy, the son, who said
to his father, Father, give me that which is mine. And when
his father gave it to him, and he went out and wasted his father's
substance with riotous living and with harlots, he was still
his father's son, wasn't he? And so you see here that what
belonged to the shepherd, what belonged to the woman, and what
belonged to this father were theirs before they were lost,
and even until the time that they were recovered again. so
that the shepherd greatly rejoiced because he found his sheep which
was lost. And the woman, the coin that was lost, that was
hers. That's why she was happy. And
the father couldn't have been happier, and the son couldn't
have been more surprised to see his father running to him. And
when his father fell on his neck, and wept over him, and embraced
him, and kissed him much, and called for the ring of his sonship
to be put on his finger, and the shoes of his father's house
to be put on his feet, and the robe to be put upon him, and
the best and the fattest calf to be slain, and a feast to be
made for him." All these things were the result of this boy belonging
to his father. So you see that in the first
place, We know that God doesn't love everyone because these,
the sheep and the coin and the son, belonged to the father before
they were lost. Belonged to the shepherd and
the woman. And so in Luke, I'm sorry, in John, the book of John
in chapter 11, when the The men who wanted to crucify Jesus were
wringing their hands trying to figure out what they were going
to do. And the high priest that year, whose name was Caiaphas,
said this in John 11 verse 49. One of them, named Caiaphas,
being the high priest that same year, said to them, you know
nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us. That means it's necessary by
God's will. It's necessary for us that one
should die for the people And that the whole nation perish
not. So, Christ is going to die in
order to save this people out of this nation. So that the entire
nation doesn't perish. He goes on in verse 51, he says,
And this he spake not of himself, but being high priest that year,
he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not
for that nation only, but that also he should gather, listen
carefully, together in one, the children of God. that were scattered
abroad. Isn't that the same thing as
Luke 15 is saying? The children of God, they belong
to the shepherd, they belong to the woman, they belong to
the father, they were children before. And it says in Hebrews
chapter 2 verse 10, it became him, the father, God the father,
for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and bringing
many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect
through sufferings. These sons were brought to glory.
But Christ was made one with them, because He that sanctifies
and they who are sanctified are all of one, and therefore He
was made a man, because like them He had to take on flesh
and blood. But they were His brethren. They were the sons
of God. And so we see that these people
for whom God loved were sons in purpose, sons in God's electing
love, sons in predestinating grace before Christ came into
the world. He gave his son for those he
loved, those who were his children. Look at Hebrews chapter 12 and
verse 6. This shows that not all people
on the earth are God's sons. Because, and he does not love
any but his own children. He says in Hebrews chapter 12
and verse 6, For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. He disciplines his own children.
For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and he scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth. In verse 8, If you be without
chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards.
You're illegitimate. You're not sons. God loves His
sons and He disciplines them because they are His sons. He brings them to Himself because
they are His children. They were His sheep before and
they were lost. He gave them to Christ and gave
this commandment to the Lord Jesus Christ that He should lay
down His life for them. And Jesus says this in John chapter
10 verse 16, He says, "...Other sheep I have which are not of
this fold, Not of just this fold of disciples. He says, and they
also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice. They were His,
called His sheep. God the Father commanded Him
to give His life for them, and He laid it down. He says, I laid
down my life for the sheep, because I received this commandment from
my Father. And so He laid His life down for those who did not
know Him. who had not yet been born of God, but were called
His sheep, made the children of God in God's eternal election. And so they were. And look at
Romans chapter 8 and verse 29. This shows something that's going
to lead us into our next proof that God doesn't love any but
His own, but also does love His own with an eternal love. He
says in Romans chapter 8 and verse 29, For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of Christ, them
he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom
he justified, them he also glorified. What is this saying? Well, one
of the things it's saying is that all those in glory, those
who have been glorified, before time began, God the Father knew
them. He knew them. And that's what
foreknow means. He knew them before. And He predestinated. He didn't know them because He
knew they were going to someday choose Him. To think that is
to show, to reveal that the heart of man is deceitful above all
things and tries to drag in man and put him on God's throne and
dethrone God in order to get some credit to man and glory
to man and make salvation ultimately depend on man. To foreknow means
to love before. That's why he predestinated them.
Ephesians 1.4 says that He has chosen us in Christ that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. So God determined
that we should be holy. That's why we're made holy by
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. That's why
we're given God's Spirit, to sanctify us, to give us this
new nature whereby we can see Christ and believe Christ and
be made holy. He predestinated us to this.
He knew us before and predestinated us. And because of that, He brought
us to glory. I want you to consider this.
There's an unbroken chain between what God determines Or we could
put it this way, let's put it in reverse order. There's an
unbroken chain between those who are ultimately in glory and
in heaven, and God's eternal purpose before the foundation
of the world. Isn't there? Does God do anything
in time that he didn't already know he would do before the world
began? According to Acts 15-18, known
unto God are all His works from the foundation of the world.
And He works everything according to the counsel of His own will.
The counsel of His own will. Ephesians 1-11. And God does
all His thoughts, all His will in Isaiah 14-24. If He has determined
it, He's spoken it. And if He's spoken it, He will
bring it to pass. Isaiah 46, 10-11. So God's will and God's work
are one. There's no deviation between
what he wants to do and what he actually does. And there's
no starting point in God's work that didn't begin in eternity.
There's an unbroken chain between the final result and the purpose
God had from the beginning of the world. And so if there's
anybody who is saved at the end, it means God determined to save
them at the beginning. And God gave them to Christ and
Christ obligated Himself in voluntary joy in order to give Himself
for them and to bring them to glory. This is what Romans 8
verse 29 and 30 is saying. That those who are in glory,
are there because they were foreknown, they were loved before by God,
predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ, called
by the Spirit of God to life, to show that they were justified
in Christ at the cross, and that they might be glorified in the
end of time. And the conclusion follows in
verse 30, moreover, I'm sorry, verse 31, what shall we say? What shall we then say to these
things if God be for us? Who can be against us? If God
be for us, who can be against us? Go ahead, pop your head up
if you want to. We're going to smash it down.
Because none can speak against God. None can thwart His will.
None can oppose God's work. It's ludicrous. It's not only
ludicrous, but it's abhorrent to think so. In verse 31, verse
32, listen to this. Very powerful proof of God's
love for His people, and only His people. Listen to this. There's
an unbroken chain. That's the first proof. He loves
those who were His own. He saves those who were lost,
who were already His own. And in verse 32, He says, He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? God gives us what He gives us
because He loved us with the kind of love that emptied heaven
in the gift of His own Son. If God gave His Son and did not
spare Him, the wrath of God, the forsaking of God, the bearing
our guilt and shame, the humiliation of taking our nature and bearing
our sins in His own body as His own before God, and in humiliation
before this universe as the Son of Man lifted up on the cross.
If God didn't spare His Son in this way, if God didn't spare
His Son, He will give us all things with Him and do so freely.
I love that example Don Fortner gave a long time ago. He says
that his son-in-law married his only daughter and someone was
surprised when he gave his son the keys to his house and all
the other things he had, his car and stuff. He says, why did
you give him that? He said, well, if I gave him
my daughter, why wouldn't I give it to him? I've given him everything
and my daughter. If God has given us His Son,
if God has spared not His own Son in death for us all to satisfy
His justice, to save us from our sins, then He's not going
to let any barrier stand in the way. He's going to give everything
to us. That's the argument in Romans chapter 8. He has taken
care of our sins in the blood of His Son. Can anything now
stand between us and eternal glory? No, let it raise its head
in defiance against God. God will quiet. He will silence
the accuser. He goes on. Who, who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? You see, it's all about
God's elect. Who did He give His Son for?
His elect. Who are those against whom no
charge can be brought? It's God's elect. Who were those
that God didn't spare His Son for? It's His elect. The ones
He foreknew and predestinated and called and justified and
glorified. You see, there's an unbroken
chain. And for those, God will give everything. Now, if God
is going to give everything, then what's left out? He gave
His Son, He shall give His Spirit. And with His Spirit, He will
give life. And with life, He will grant them faith to see
Christ and to see their salvation in Him. And He will grant them
repentance. Repentance and faith and every
gift to bring you nigh. God has given it. And then, now
that he's taken care of every barrier in them, what does he
do? And in his own justice, what
does he do? He says, and let come what enemy will come. Nothing
can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. You know how we know that God's
love is not for everyone? Because nothing can separate
from God and His love those that He loves. Nothing. He goes on. He says, Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Our salvation
depends on one thing. Christ died for me. And why did
he die? Because God loved me in Christ
before the foundation of the world. He says, Who is he that
condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, not just died,
that is risen again for us. who is even at the right hand
of God for us, I'm putting those words in, who also makes intercession
for us. It's all for His people. Christ
died for us. God spared not His Son for us.
God justified us. And therefore, none can say anything
against God's elect. None can condemn one for whom
Christ died. Therefore, Christ did not die
for everyone. Do you see that? How could He
die for everyone if none can condemn those for whom Christ
died, and rose, and reigns, and intercedes? You see? There's a consistency. God the
Father loves his elect. Christ died for the elect, the
sheep, the brethren, the church. He gave himself for it. The church
of God. And in verse 33, he draws it
even further. Who shall separate us? Not from
our love for Christ, but for the love of Christ. For us. I'm sorry, that's verse 35. Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Now He goes on for
things outside and inside, such as tribulation, or distress,
our own distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
like the coronavirus, or the government, or sword. Verse 36,
now listen to this. This is how God gets glory in
our lives. As it is written, for thy sake,
We are killed all the day long. You see, we are made the off-scouring
of the earth. We are brought low in order that
God's grace might shine and His love for us, His inseparable
love for us might be glorified. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay. In all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. What does
God's love do? It saves us from our sins. It
gives His Son for us. It gives us His Spirit. It conquers
every accuser and silences every accuser and conquers every enemy. It makes us more than conquerors
and brings us to glory, justifying us by the blood of Christ. That's
what the love of God does. So when we go back to John 3.16,
if we think that John 3.16 is teaching that
God loves everybody and that Christ died for everybody, and
that now it's up to you to make a decision for you to meet that
one condition that God requires you to meet in order for you
to attract His attention and somehow save you, then we have
missed the message of John 3. The message of John 3 is the
unconquerable all conquering, all saving love of God for His
people because He gave His Son for them. You see, it's a message
that sinners understand, a message that sinners love, a message
that sinners need. This is the message that glorifies
God alone. And it humbles us, and yet it
makes us more glad to own Christ as our only Savior and our King
in all things. And the last word here in the
verse that I wanted to touch on is, Whosoever believeth in
Him, Does God know who the whosoever are? Was this written so that
God would allow someone He didn't know to somehow come into His
kingdom? Oh look, look there's someone
I didn't expect. One of the whosoever's. He whosoever
willed. So I have to accept Him. Is that
the way that this works? To think so is to blaspheme God. To blaspheme Christ. God knows
His own. The foundation of God standeth
sure, the Lord knoweth them that are His. There's no possibility
that God doesn't know those who are saved, those for whom He
gave His Son. No possibility that Christ confessed
the sins of His people on Himself, whose sins He did not know. He
knew them, didn't He? And He bore them too. He didn't
bear the punishment for others. He bore the punishment for His
people. Christ died for our sins. not for the sins of the whole
world, but for the sins of his people. Everyone out of the world
for whom Christ died are those God loved from eternity. And
so he says in Jeremiah 31.3, this everlasting love of God,
this unchanging, this unfailing, this saving love of God, this
distinguishing love of God in Jeremiah 31.3, he says, The Lord
hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee,
with an everlasting love. Has no beginning, has no end. It doesn't know any abatement,
doesn't know any increase of intensity. It's an everlasting
love. God loved his people in Christ
and therefore he loved them from before the beginning of the world.
He says, I've loved thee with an everlasting love. This is
the foundation. If you go back to the beginning,
and you go back before the beginning, what are you going to find at
the foundation of our salvation? You're going to find this written.
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. That's the foundation.
And when you get there, you can't go any further back. But look
at the next word. Therefore, therefore, with loving
kindness have I drawn thee. You see what God's love does?
It saves. Zephaniah 3 verse 17. The Lord
thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. This is the love of
God. It's saving. It's almighty. The
Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. You see, if God
doesn't save all those whom He loves, then what does it say
about His strength? He's not almighty, is He? He
couldn't overcome that person's reluctance. He couldn't overcome
their blindness. He couldn't overcome their sin.
He couldn't arrange things to bring them. He couldn't woo them.
He couldn't bring them into the wilderness and allure them. He
couldn't love them freely. He required something from them.
He wasn't really almighty. But he says here, the Lord thy
God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice
over thee with joy. He will rest in His love. You
see what God's love does? He rests in it. He knows that
His love will not go unrequited. It will not go unsatisfied. He
will have the objects of His love. Because He gave His Son
for them, He will give them everything. He'll give us everything. Everything
with Christ. All that belongs to Him will
be given to His people because He spared not His Son. He gave
His Son for them. He gave His Son to them. He gives
us everything in spite of our sin. This is love a sinner understands. A sinner can find full assurance
in this love because this love is not in us. It's in Christ
Jesus, our Lord. And nothing can separate us from
this love. Oh, the love of God. May God help us to comprehend. May God give us this grace to
comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height of the love
of Christ. And to ask such is to ask more than we could even
ask or think, but God is able to do that. Let's pray. Your
Lord, our God and Father, thank you for this everlasting love
that reaches from heavens high to the depths of hell and extends
to every nation and kindred and tongue and people, to slaves
and to free, to men and to women, to children and to adults, and
to the rich and the poor, and to great sinners. And we pray,
Lord, that you would save us by this saving love of yours
and this grace of yours. Save us in Christ, for Christ's
sake. Give your Spirit to us to see
and know Him, and look only to Him, and find our all in Him,
and never think of looking to ourselves, or coming with something
of our own, but coming to find, coming to find it all in Christ,
and praying this one prayer, that we might be found in Christ
Jesus our Lord, not having our own righteousness, but His alone.
In Your name we pray, and for His glory, in Jesus' name. Amen.