"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."
John 3:16 is the most well known Bible verse throughout the world.
It's simple enough for a child to understand it.
It's so rich that theologians and pastors struggle to fully communicate
the depths of God's love contained in this one small verse. In second Corinthians 9:15,
the Apostle Paul speaks of the gift of God's love and says, "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift."
And I love that word -
"Indescribable," because when I think of the goodness of the Gospel,
it's hard for me to describe the joy and the purpose that my salvation brings to every day of my life.
We cannot even begin to describe the gift of God's grace, because as humans, we can't fully comprehend all that God is
and all that He has given to us in the Person of Jesus Christ.
This little book, The Gift, is written in an effort to describe something that is indescribable.
And we'll look at this verse in six parts.
The first part "For God" - The Indescribable God The second part, "So loved the world" - His Indescribable Love.
The third part , "That He gave His only begotten Son" - His Indescribable Sacrifice
The fourth part, "That whoever believes in Him" - The Simplest Invitation.
The fifth part, "Shall Not Perish" - The Indescribable Danger
Lastly, "But have eternal life" - His Indescribable Gift.
"For God" - The indescribable God We try to comprehend and describe God with terms like goodness, righteousness, holiness and love.
But any words we use to describe the Almighty God and Creator of the universe fall short of who He truly is.
So let's focus on two things: His immensity and His intimacy.
These two words appear to be opposites --
two attributes that surely cannot be found in the same Person.
But in God they are coexistent attributes. The Psalmist David said it like this:
"When I consider the heavens the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained,"
"...what is man that You would take thought of him and the Son of Man that You would care for him?"
Psalm 8:3-4 David ponders on how God, whose fingers formed the heavens,
would find the time and reason to think of a mere man. That's a legitimate thing to ponder!
Isaiah 40:12 says, "Who has measured out the waters in the hollow of His Hand,"
"...and marked off the heavens by the span..."
A verse that speaks of the immensity of God.
Have you ever been in a place where the air is so clear or the altitude
so high that you can peer into the darkness of the night sky and behold the Milky Way Galaxy?
The immensity and brightness of it is mind boggling!
Yet the Milky Way, which is our galaxy, is only one of 2 trillion galaxies in the known Universe,
and our Planet Earth is like a little speck of dust hanging around in the Milky Way.
You and I are one of over 7 billion souls alive on that speck of dust today.
Yet, the immense God who measures out the Universe
with the span of His Hand wants to have a personal relationship with you!
God planned and ordained our lives before we were ever born.
He created us in our mother's womb;
He formed and weaved our inward parts by His hands.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Read Psalm 139. When we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior,
this immense and Holy God comes to live inside of us, to indwell us, and to call us His own.
He knows our thoughts and our desires, our hopes, our dreams and our fears.
He knows the number of hairs on our head!
Indeed, we are engraved on the palms of His Hands.
See Luke 12:7, and Isaiah 49:16.
Let's think of the Intimacy of God.
"Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands." Isaiah 4
David says in Psalm 139:1-6:
"Oh, Lord, you have searched me and known me."
"...You know, when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize..."
"...my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways."
"...Even before there is a word on my tongue."
"...Behold, oh Lord, You know it all."
"...You have enclosed me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me."
"...Such knowledge is too wonderful. For me it is too high."
"...I cannot attain to it."
David, the psalmist here is describing the intimacy of God's relationship with creation,
yet he admits he cannot comprehend how such an immense God would be so interested in the details of his life
and indeed the life of every man, every woman, and every child on Planet Earth.
The indescribable gift found in John 3:16 comes to us
from an immense God, an intimate God, an indescribable God!
The next part of this verse, John 3:16, says, "For God so loved the world." This love is an indescribable love.
God is love and love gives.
We understand this to some extent in the human realm.
A wife gives herself to her husband and gives her life to the raising of her children.
A husband gives his life to provide and protect his wife and family.
One enlists in the military service with a willingness to give their lives for their country.
We quite often out of love, give gifts and devotion to those we love.
But the amazing thing about God's love is that He loves even His enemies.
He loves you and me.
He gives his very own Son out of love for us while we were still lost -- still separated from Him by our own sin.
Romans 5:6-8, says "For while we were still helpless, at the right time..."
"...Christ died for the ungodly,"
"...for one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, someone would dare even to die."
"...But God demonstrates His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Amy Carmichael, the great missionary to India,
said, "You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving."
God's love is a giving love.
It is an unconditional love based not on who we are, but on who He is.
It is a love that never changes and never diminishes.
It is a love that can be trusted and embraced with our whole heart.
This is indescribable love -- that a holy and righteous God --
would be willing to send His only Son to die for sinful man.
Thanks be to God for His indescribable love!
1st John 3:16 speaks of this indescribable love.
Speaking of Jesus, it says, "We know love by this that He laid down His life for us."
The next part of John 3:16 are found in the words, "That He gave His only begotten Son."
This is God's Indescribable Sacrifice.
God isn't a talker. He's a doer.
He doesn't just say He loves us. He proves He loves us.
His love has proved to you and me by this sacrifice of His one and only Son on the cross.
God sacrificed His Son; the Son sacrificed His life.
Consider with me the events leading up to the crucifixion.
First, Jesus was betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter.
Then He was arrested, scourged, spit upon, and beaten in the face.
He was stripped, mocked, and a crown of thorns shoved down on His skull.
Then Jesus was made to carry His cross to Golgotha, where they drove heavy nails
into His hands and feet. Through all of this physical and emotional pain,
Jesus never cried out. The real sacrifice of Jesus came when God gathered
the sins of the entire world and placed the penalty of those sins onto His beloved Son.
The nails pierced the hands and feet of Jesus, but something greater pierced his heart --
our sins pierced His heart.
The perfect Son of God was pierced through for the transgressions of every man.
This is found in Isaiah 53:5.
And this is when the Son of God cried out to the Father and to the spirit, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
We are the ones who deserved to die
such a hideous death, but, out of love,
Jesus Christ died in our place.
He became sin on our behalf. As Jesus hung on the cross, the perfect Son of God
became the murderer, the rapist, the adulterer, the liar, the thief.
He became the Adolf Hitler, the Judas Iscariot and you can put your name
and my name into that list because He became your sin and mine.
1st Peter 2:24 says, "And He (Jesus) bore our sins in His body on the cross,"
"...so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed."
Philippians 2:8.
Again, speaking of Jesus, "He was found in appearances, a man He humbled Himself by becoming obedient..."
"...to the point of death, even death on a cross." 2nd Corinthians 5:21, "or God made Him (Jesus) Who knew no sin..."
"...to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Can you and I comprehend such a sacrifice? Absolutely not!
Even in eternity, when we are face to face with Him, when we see the nails-scarred hands and the nails-scarred feet,
even then, we will not totally comprehend His sacrifice because He totally delivered us from sin's penalty.
Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death," and Jesus paid
that great wage for us. Thanks be to God for His indescribable sacrifice!
And then, John 3:16 says, "That whoever believes in Him." This is the simplest invitation.
This is the only part of John 3:16 that we can fully comprehend, because it is so simple.
It's as simple as the faith of a little child, as simple as walking through a door,
as simple as receiving a precious gift. Acts 16:31 says,
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." The Book of John is the most evangelistic book in the Bible.
And John himself states the purpose for the writing of the book in chapter 20 and verse 31
He says, "That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing..."
"...you may have life in His name." The book of John uses the word believe approximately 100 times,
because simple faith in Jesus Christ is the key to receiving the indescribable gift.
Just as God's love is an unconditional love, the salvation invitation is an unconditional invitation.
It goes out to all who were all who are and all who will be.
It extends to male and female, young and old, rich and poor -- all people, languages and nationalities.
It is an invitation to princes and prostitutes and everyone in between.
1st Timothy 2:4 says, "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior..."
"...who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
2nd Peter 3:9 says, "The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness,"
"...but is patient towards you not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance."
The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross was sufficient to pay for every sin
of every person who ever lived that ALL may come to Him in faith.
Christ died for ALL because to Him ALL souls matter.
Thanks be to God for providing this simple but sure way to eternal life!
"Shall not perish" John 3:16 says, "Shall not perish" -- An Indescribable Danger.
The Lake of Fire, Hell, is a real place.
We are born into this world, spiritually dead, separated from a righteous and holy God
by the imputed sin of Adam and by our own sin. Through faith in Jesus Christ, those sins are forgiven.
But for those who reject Him, the wrath of God, God abides on them for all of eternity.
Jesus said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul;"
"...but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell." Matthew 10:28.
We use words to describe Hell: darkness, loneliness, fire, torment and eternal separation from a holy God.
Those who reject Jesus and His work on the cross will fully experience this eternal torment.
Those who believe in Jesus Christ will never even come close to being able to describe Hell,
because they will never experience it.
John 3:36 says, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life,"
"...but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."
And 1st Corinthians 15:22 " For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ, all will be made alive."
Thanks be to God for making a way for us to be delivered from this indescribable danger!
The last phrase in John 3:16, "But have eternal life."
Here we are again at "God's Indescribable Gift." Throughout the history of mankind,
many search for the fountain of youth or some secret to prolonging life and preventing death.
Their efforts are in vain for all men will eventually die (Hebrews 9:27). Only through believing in Jesus Christ
can we be assured of the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life.
John 11:25, Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in Me shall live even if he dies."
John 5:24, "Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him, who sent me, has eternal life..."
"...and does not come into judgment but is passed out of death into life."
Receiving this gift of eternal life means that the moment we close our eyes in death,
we open them in heaven, in the presence of God and face to face with Jesus Christ.
The gift of eternal life takes the fears and uncertainties of death and replaces them with the joy
and anticipation of our new eternal home heaven.
We know enough about this eternal destiny to long to be there.
Streets of gold, myriads of angels singing praises to God, reunion with loved ones.
No more sickness, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears blessings forever.
But does this completely describe an eternal heaven we cannot yet describe because we haven't yet experienced it.
But someday through faith in Jesus Christ, we will.
In Revelation 21:5 Jesus says, "He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.'"
In John 14:1-4 Jesus gave us this promise,
"Do not let your heart be troubled."
"...Believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house, are many dwelling places."
"...If it were not so, I would have told you. for I go to prepare a place for you."
"...if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself."
"...that where I am there you may be also." Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way and the truth and the life;"
"...No one comes to the Father but through Me." Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!
I encourage you to embrace this gift with all of your heart.