Good evening. I invite your attention to the
gospel according to John chapter 3. John's gospel chapter 3. My text is verse number 16 and
God willing tonight we will address the subject of for God so loved
the world. I am blessed to be here tonight
and thankful for the opportunity to be here in a specially scheduled
worship service. I pray the Lord be pleased to
meet with us who have gathered here in the name of His Son and
that He might be pleased to bless the gospel of his son that is
preached and that we might be enabled to worship him in spirit
and in truth. We read in our text that for
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting
life. My text is probably the most
well-known and probably the most beloved text in all the world. I dare say that all of you here
tonight could have quoted it from memory as soon as I told
you what it was. On the other hand, I could probably
go into almost any house of ill repute tonight in your fair city
and I could find some fallen men and fallen women who could
quote it probably as well as you could. It's a well-known
verse. It is a very abused verse. It is a very misused verse. It is a very misapplied verse. But nevertheless, it is a glorious
text. God so loved the world. In this short verse and in the
doctrine contained in it, I want you to see tonight that God loved
graciously, perfectly, eternally, extensively, incomparably, sacrificially,
effectually, and purposefully. And every one of those adverbs
is found here in my text with regard to God so loved the world. First of all, God loved graciously. We know this because of that
little conjunctive four, F-O-R, in the very beginning of the
text. This little conjunctive four
connects verse 16 to the preceding verses 14 and 15. There we read
that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life. For, did you catch that? There is a direct connection
between verses 16 and 14 and 15. For God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in
him should not perish but have everlasting life. You know undoubtedly
the story of the serpent in the wilderness recorded in Numbers
chapter 21 where we find that the children of Israel had rebelled
against the Lord again. And so the Lord sent fiery serpents
among them and the serpents began to bite the people and the poison,
the venom of the serpents began to kill the people. And God in
justice would have been just had he just let them all die. They all deserved it. They deserved
it. But God dealt in mercy and in
grace. And he said, okay, Moses, make
a serpent and raise it up. And then you tell everyone that
if they just look to the serpent, they will live. I'm a gracious
God, and he is. God, in His tender mercy, showed
compassion to Israel. in grace provided the means by
which they were healed of their physical afflictions, and God
in grace loved the world so much that he made in his grace provision
for their spiritual afflictions." Notice, God loved graciously,
and second, God loved perfectly. How do we know? Because God is
love. We read not only that God loved,
but we read that God is love. God is love in his very nature. And note this well, God is perfect
in everything that he is. In his person, in his character,
in his attributes, in his works, in his doings. God is perfect
in everything. If God is love, then God loved
perfectly, flawlessly, without a fault. We stress this fact
because when we read that God is love, and when we read that
God loved, The noun and the verb are both from the same Greek
word agape. Now we've all heard this word
agape. Religious people like to talk
about agape. I do not think they much understand
it for the most part. But I want you to know something
about this word agape. Agape. It is perfect. If you want to know something
about what this love is, go to 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-8,
where Paul talks about charity in your King James Version. The
word is love. The Greek word is agape. And there you will find just
how perfect God is. Now remember that God is love
or agape. And agape, we read, suffers long
and is kind. Agape never fails. Now that's God. That's God. Alright? Love suffers long. How long? God is not slack concerning
His promise, as men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us. Why is He long-suffering? God
is love, and love is long-suffering. Not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance. Love is kind. How kind? Kind enough to save, and love
never fails, and God never fails. I'm going to say to you, listen
to me carefully. If you are an object of God's love, God's love
to you will suffer long with you, be kind to you, and will
never fail you. God loved perfectly. Number three, consider that God
loved eternally. Now you may not note that when
you first read the text, but I want you to note the tense
of the verb. Jesus does not say that God loves
the world, though He does. Jesus does not say that God will
love the world, though he will. Rather, Jesus used a form of
the past tense. God so loved the world. And I'm going to say to you that
on the basis of that word loved, God's love is eternal. He loved the world eternally. How do we know? Because we read
in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 3, Jehovah declares, yes, I have
loved, past tense, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Now when we think of everlasting,
we say, okay, it'll be everlasting all the way into the future.
True. but it goes further it is everlasting
all the way into the past before this world began God sent
his love on some people and then he said I have loved you with
an everlasting love my love has lasted all the way back from
before the foundation the world will last when this world is
over because God loved eternally I'm going to say to you that
the world loved by God was never, is never, will never be hated
by Him. Never. Fourth, God loved extensively. How do we know? Because God loved
the world. No one deserves God's love. I'm not certain, but there may
be others. I can think of only one man right
now that God said, I love, and that's Jacob. If God loved one member of our
fallen race, that is more than our entire race deserved. God
does not love one, or two, or three, or a few, or even many. God loved a whole world of sinners. The world. God so loved the world,
and none of them deserved it. Why is that? Let me describe
to you what you are in your natural state. Every one of us. Every
one of us is the sort of people God hates. And He does hate. He does hate. And there are people
whom He hates. And they are identified. You
hate all workers of iniquity, Psalm 5 verse 5. You hate those
who speak falsehood, Psalm 5 verse 6. God hates the bloodthirsty,
Psalm 5, 6. God hates the deceitful man,
Psalm 5, 6. God hates the wicked, Psalm 11,
verse 5. God hates the one who loves violence,
Psalm 11, verse 5. God hates a false witness who
speaks lies, Proverbs 6, 19. And in the same proverb, God
hates one who sows discord among brethren. Well, folks, he just
described every one of us. Every one of us. Every one of
us is by nature the sort of person God hates. Now do you not see
this? That if he loved even one of
us, that was infinitely more than our entire race ever deserved. God loved the world. He would
have been eternally just had he just said, I hate every one
of you and you're going on to hell. Now go. God would be eternally
just if he just sent us there the very moment we were born.
Would have been. We were conceived in sin, shaped
in iniquity. We departed the womb speaking
lies. We deserved hell the moment we were born. When we say that God loved the
world, let me tell you what it means. It means that God's love
transcends all earthly boundaries and barriers and is not confined
to one group of people. God loved people regardless of
their ethnicity. For the congregation of His loved
ones is a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations,
tribes, peoples, and tongues. Revelation 7 verse 9. And they
sing, You have loved us and redeemed us by Your blood out of every
ethnic group there is on this earth. Now, Men may hate you
because of the color of your skin, and you may hate men because
of the color of their skin, but note this well. God's love transcends
it. Transcends it. God loved people regardless of
their gender. I can show you men who hate women
and women who hate men, and I can show you that God loved both
men and women. Loved them both. Because God
loved the world. God loved people regardless of
their earthly status. He loved them both high and low,
both rich and poor, both cultured and barbaric, both slaves and
free men. God even loved outcasts and untouchables. Loved them. God loved people regardless of
their sin. Regardless. God loved people who are sexually
immoral, drunkards, idolaters, coveters, lusters, thieves, robbers,
murderers. God loved the people that you
and I hate by nature. God even loved the chief of sinners,
the worst one there is. If God loved the chief of sinners,
I think there's hope for you and me. Fifth, God loved incomparably,
beyond compare. And this we know because of that
little word, so. For God so loved the world. This word so is so tiny, but
its import is so great. It defies meaning. God loved
the world so greatly, so magnificently, so marvelously, so wondrously,
so gloriously, like everything else God does. And it is therefore
with no wonder that the song writer has written, could we
with think the ocean field, and were the skies of parchment made,
were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the
whole, though stretched from sky to sky. You have never seen
love like this. God loved the world. Sixth, God
loved sacrificially. For God so loved the world that,
notice the sacrifice He gave His only begotten Son. There is nothing dearer to God
than His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, nothing. It's the dearest
thing in all the world to Him. Jesus Christ is dear to God solely
because He is God's only begotten Son. Jesus Christ is dear to
God eternally, for the Son declares that even before the foundation
of the world, I was daily His delight. Proverbs 8, verse 10. Before there was you and me,
before there was a world, there was God and His Son, His only
Son, and the Father delighted in Him. Jesus Christ is dear to God manifestly,
for the Father declares of him, you, and of him alone, the only
one of whom he said, you are my well-beloved son. In you,
I am well pleased. Nevertheless, God loved the world
so much that he gave that which was dearest to him. I have an
only begotten son. And I have an only begotten daughter. And I love them dearly. And there
is no one I love enough to give one of my children for. Not a
one. If I had a hundred children,
I still wouldn't give one for a bunch of sinners. Not a one. God loved the world so much that
he gave that which is dearest to him. God came down one day to our
father Abraham and he said, Abraham, I want you to take your son,
your only son, Isaac, your only son whom you love, take him up
to the mountain and sacrifice him. Now God knew about Ishmael, but
in God's sight, Abraham had only one son. And those are his words. Take your son, your only son
Isaac, whom you love, and take him up there and sacrifice him.
And you may say, that's very demanding. Well, God will never
require of you what he will not do for you. God gave his son. His only son, Jesus, whom he
loved for a sacrifice for a world of sinners. You think about that.
He loved sacrificially. Paul says, God did not spare
his own son, but delivered him up for us all. God demonstrates
his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. God demonstrated his love when
he gave his son. Gave him sacrificially. And the
son proved his love for the world when he died for them in their
place instead. Number six, I want you to, number
seven, I want you to see that God loved effectually. How do
we know? For God so loved the world that
he gave. Now watch that word very carefully. He gave his only begotten son. The text does not say that God
so loved the world that He offered His Son in the hope that some
might accept Him. Had that been the case, the Son
never would have been given because nothing is given until it is
received. God did not offer His Son. God
gave his son. If God gave his son, the son
necessarily was received. God's son was never accepted
by men. God did not put his son out for
acceptance. God's no fool. He is despised and rejected of
men. He came to His own, and His own
would not accept Him. They rejected Him. And yet God
said, Somebody's gonna receive Him. And therefore God gave Him. And those to whom God gave the
Son, they received Him. And I want you to see this, that
God's love is effectual. If God has set His love on you,
you will receive Christ. You will. Because God has already
said, yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore,
with loving kindness. It's great, isn't it? I have
drawn you. Alright. I drew you. I gave you my son. And when I gave my son, you believed
in him. And you received him, and as
many as received him. Who were they? Those whom God
loved and gave his son. They received him. To them he
gave the right to become sons of God, even to those who believed
on his name. God loved effectually. And then, God loved purposefully. My last point. God loved purposefully. And here's his purpose. His purpose
was the salvation of the world that he loved. Listen carefully. For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send his
son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through him might be saved. That's his purpose. That's his
purpose. His purpose is the salvation
of the world that he loved. To believe in Christ is In the
two verses immediately preceding our present text, identified
with looking to Him with the eye of faith for salvation. That's
what believing in Him is, it's looking. Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness and then he said, now look. Look
and you'll live. Look and you'll be saved. For
God so loved the world that whoever believes in Him, what is it?
To believe in Him is to look to Him with the eye of faith.
And when you look to Him with the eye of faith, you're believing
in Him. And God's purpose is that all
who do so shall be saved. Every one of them. But I want you to note very well.
that none are saved except those who believe in Christ. None. None are saved except those who
look to Christ. None. We do not read that salvation
is to those who keep the Ten Commandments of the law of Moses.
In the first place, you can't do it. And in the second place,
by the laws of knowledge of sin, the law will not save you. All it'll do is show you what
a nutter, failure, and sinner you are. No one was ever saved
by observing Sabbath days, getting baptized, doing penance, joining
a church or anything else that men tell us to do for salvation.
Salvation is for believers in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ
and for them alone. Them alone. That Philippian jailer asked
the most important question a man could ask. What must I do to
be saved? And he was given the definitive
answer. And in that answer there's not
a single word about the law, the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath,
baptism, anything else. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved. Now that's my message to you
tonight. Believe on him. What preacher I did once, well
then keep on, I do. Keep on. Never take your eyes
off Christ. Never. I'm going to say to you
that if you look to Christ with the eye of faith and if you believe,
He'll save you. And if you look and are saved,
you'll know something about God's love to the world. I here must
warn you against those who say that This phrase, God loved the
world, it means that God loved everyone alike. Note very well, Jesus did not
say, God loved everyone. He didn't say that. He said,
God loved the world, and words mean things. People will come
to you and they'll say, when you read that God loved the world,
put your name in there, put your name in there, so that you can
say God loved Fred. God loved Carolyn. Problem is,
there's more than one Fred, more than one Carolyn, and God doesn't
love them all. Doesn't love them all. And when they tell you that,
they know, they know very well that they're lying through their
teeth. They know that God himself declared, Jacob I have loved
and Esau have I hated. And despite knowing this, these
blasphemous preachers have the audacity to go to Esau and say,
Esau smile, God loves you. And when you read John 3, 16,
you can just read in there that, for God so loved Esau that he
gave his only begotten son so that Esau could believe on him
and be saved. Esau knows better. They do too. But they'll lie to you about
what they know to be against the truth. Now hear me well. Neither Esau nor all the other
unrepentant and unbelieving wicked people I formally described to
you are in the world loved by God. There is a world that God
loved and then we just read about people that he hates. He hates
them. They are not in the world that
God loved. And note this well. There is
more than one world on this earth. more than one world on this earth. We know this because Jesus Christ
distinguished the world loved by God from another world in
John chapter 17. He says, I have finished the
work which you gave me to do." Now, what was that work? Listen,
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and
God sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world, but
he sent his son to save the world. And I'm going to tell you this,
the son was successful. He saved the world. Everyone
in it. He saved the world. Then, the
night before he dies, he goes to the garden and he prays and
he says, Father, I have finished the work which you gave me to
do. What was that work? Save the
world, my son. Father, I did it. I saved the
world. He says to his father, I have
manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of
the world. Ah, there are two worlds. One
of them came out of the other. I have manifested your name to
the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours.
You gave them to me. When he chose them unto salvation
before time began, predestined them to be his sons and then
made them accepted in the beloved. Gave them to Christ and Christ
accepted them because Christ accepted them they received Christ. He says, listen carefully, they
whom you gave me, whom you chose out of the world, they whom you
gave me, they who were yours, they whom you love, he says,
they have believed that you have sent me and I pray for them.
Now listen carefully, I do not pray for the world, but for those
whom you gave me." That's two worlds. That's two worlds. There is a world that is loved
by God, a world to which he gave his son, a world that is saved
by Christ, and there is a world that Jesus Christ will not even
pray for. And that's a different world. They who misrepresent God's love
to his world should remember that among the people God hates
and abominates is a false witness who speaks lies. Proverbs 6,
verses 6 through 19. And any preacher who goes around
telling you God loves everyone alike, he is a false witness
speaking lies, and that's the sort of person God hates. On the other hand, All who are in this world loved
by God will make this confession, and it's in 1 John chapter 4.
If God loved you, if he did, if God set his love on you before
time began, here is your confession. In this, the love of God was
manifested toward us. that God has sent His only begotten
Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And we have known
and believed the love that God has for us. We love Him because
He first loved us. Now is that your confession?
Let me tell you something. God will save everyone He loves. My little granddaughter, when
she was barely big enough to walk, went to visit her other
grandparents and they had a swimming pool in the backyard. And my
little granddaughter, she loved that water. They'd take her into
the water and they'd play with her. She loved it. Then the family
came out of the water and went to sit down in some chairs and
the water is there all by itself. My little granddaughter decides
she wants to get into the water. She can barely walk. She cannot
swim at that time. But she loved the water and off
she goes as fast as her little chubby legs will take her. Her
parents are sitting up there and they see what she's doing.
She's going to the water. She's going to jump in. Now they
loved their little girl. Oh, they dearly loved her. What
do you suppose they're going to do? Now Kate, Kate, listen,
we love you. And we don't want you to die.
We do not want you to drown in that pool. But now, we're not
going to violate your free will. Now, if you're intent on getting
into that pool and drowning, you go ahead, but we don't want
you to. In fact, we're pleading with you. Please don't do that. Please come back to mommy and
daddy. Love does not do that. Love does
not do that. Love saves. There were two parents
out of their seats as fast as you can imagine and grabbed their
daughter because love saves. And God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have everlasting life. Trust him right now.