“FOR GOD SO LOVES”
January 29, 2012 ~ The Rev. David Moore
Scripture: John 3:11-21 | PDF print version

A couple of weeks ago Tim Tebow had a good day. Tim is the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, is a very committed Christian, and they were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in Denver. Sometimes you will see football players with a black mark or black tape beneath their eyes; they do this so that the glare of the sun is reduced and they can see better. Anyway, until the league banned it, Tim used to have “John 3:16” written in white on the black tape beneath his eyes. Tim, like I said, is a strong Christian, and John 3:16 has become identified with Tim. Well, when the Broncos played the Steelers, Tim threw for 316 yards, the last 80 on one play in overtime to win the game. Not only that, but he completed only 10 passes in the game, giving him an average of 31.6 yards per pass completed. Even the non-Christians had to be impressed.

John 3:16 is perhaps the most important and most quoted verse in the Bible. If you have no verses committed to memory, begin with this one. But it is not by itself, but a part of something bigger.

John 3:11-21
“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

Let’s pray.

So a bit of context. Jesus is in Jerusalem for the first of three visits. He has come to celebrate the Passover. This is after the start of His ministry in Galilee, we suspect because Nicodemus comes to Him wanting to chat, in part because of the miracles, the signs and wonders, Jesus has been performing, which have given validity to the teaching Jesus has been doing. Nicodemus wants to know about all that.

We talked last week about our friend Nicodemus, the Pharisee who visited Jesus at night in order to get more teaching, in order to hear more about what Jesus was talking about. Pharisees were supposed to be the most pious people in all of Israel, but Nicodemus recognized that Jesus had something he didn’t. There was authority. There was confidence. There was power. Jesus had been doing signs, miracles that no Pharisee could ever have done. So where does this power come from, and how is it that a nobody, from nowhere Nazareth, could do these miracles, could teach with such authority? Nicodemus wants to know. I hope we would have wanted to know. Nicodemus is unusual, I suspect, because He wants to hear Jesus out, He wants to know about Jesus. Others have written Jesus off because He is unorthodox…He treats women well, He treats the lowly and downtrodden like they are real people, His teaching does not reinforce what the Pharisees believed to be important and true. So Nicodemus wants to know, who is this guy?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, is one of the favorite ways Jesus refers to Himself. This actually is a reference to Daniel 7:13, which you may know. It says this:

“As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed."

So what Jesus is saying is that He was the one Daniel saw in the vision, what Daniel saw was true, and that Jesus Himself has descended to earth from heaven, and has the authority to speak about heavenly things because He has seen them.

Jesus testifies to what He knows and has seen. If you think He is a liar, then you won’t believe Him. But that would not square with what Nicodemus has seen about Jesus. He doesn’t seem to be a liar; in fact, just the opposite. He seems to be a person people trust, He seems to be very attractive to people, which is not something a liar is. So we, like Nicodemus, have the opportunity to put Jesus down or lift Him up, just like Moses and the bronze serpent.

You might remember what Jesus is referencing about the serpent. When Moses was in the desert with the people of Israel, at one point, actually at many points, but at one particular point the people started complaining. They complained about food and water and that they were tired of manna. So a bunch of snakes started biting the people, and many folks died. Then Moses prayed to the Lord and the response came in a curious way. Moses was to make a snake like thing, put it on a pole and when the people were bitten, they would look up at the pole and be healed. If you ever seen the symbol for a doctor, you’d notice that it is a snake wrapped around a pole. This is why.

So in order to be healed, the people would have to believe and lift their eyes up to see the bronze snake on the pole. So in the same way, we have to lift our eyes up to see Jesus, we have to believe. We have to see Jesus as lifted up both on the cross and lifted up into Heaven. The cross is central to who we understand Jesus to be, He who died for our sins as the once and for all sacrifice, whose blood is shed for me, but also that Jesus is risen, lifted up on high. What Nicodemus needs to hear is that Jesus is to be exalted by all of us humans, Pharisee or not. He can tell us about what God wants and who God is because Jesus has been there; He knows. Like all humans, Nicodemus was trying to figure things out, how to please God was an exercise in precision, rather than a freeing love towards all people. But Jesus knows. And He tells us.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

For me, although John 3:16 is a great verse, it is even better when combined with John 3:17. God loves, so He sends. For so long I think we Christians have bought into the stereotype that we are condemners, that we are simply telling people they are going to hell. It was interesting this Christmas watching Kaidi’s cousin parent her kids. I heard at least twice, “Don’t lie. If you lie you will burn in hell.” Now, I’m not yet a parent, so I don’t know the temptation to pull out the ‘you’re going to hell’ threat of last resort. I can see how there might be times, but I hope that isn’t how I will be a parent. I’m not sure that the threat of hell should be an evangelizing tool. I don’t know if it was ever effective, one person to another.

I get so frustrated with those folks from Kansas who protest everything with those nasty and untrue signs, Westboro Baptist I think they are. You probably have seen them on tv at one time or another. They have the signs that say “God hates fags” or “Thank God for dead Americans”…their point being, as I understand it, that America is tolerating sin in all sorts of forms, and therefore we should not be surprised by God punishing America, and that punishment, as they see it, comes in the form of dead servicemen and women. What a nasty group of people. Frankly, it is a very OT view of the world and God’s relationship to it that would lead a group to be so wrong. God made a covenant with Israel, not America. So the covenant, and a covenant relationship doesn’t apply to us. To hold up a sign that says that God hates any particular sort of people ignores some important part of the Bible; here in John 3 is perhaps the best example.

It seems clear to me that God loves, and so God sent. God does not desire to condemn, but as C.S. Lewis said, the door to hell is locked on the inside. Jesus came to save, the one sheep while leaving the 99, came to save the lost son, came to find a lost coin, all metaphors for finding, for saving what had been lost. Jesus talks quite a bit about hell, there is a place for those who want to be away from God, whose deeds are evil, but Jesus’ mission was not that. His mission was to save. Jesus came with the mission to save people through His sacrifice, through His blood. He warned people about ignoring His message, but He was never condemning. Even as He was on the cross, bleeding, suffocating, He prayed for the people who killed Him. That doesn’t sound like what Westboro folks are about.

I did a funeral a few years ago for a kid I never met, but whose family wanted a pastor to do a service for him. He wasn’t a good kid, in fact, he was pretty messed up. But my message to the family, and to me as well actually, is that even though we all considered him to be a bad person, we all stand before God in the same place: in need of God, in need of grace, guilty of all our misdeeds, our sin. That we are not condemned is the grace of God. We have been assured that when we stand before judgment the situation won’t be that we will be found innocent, because truly, we are not innocent. What will happen is that Jesus will stand up and say that the penalty for our sin has already been paid. And we are free to go with Him into eternity. When Christians condemn others, it is so wrong I can’t believe it. Now we can say that Scripture says an action is wrong, but to condemn people is not within our power; it shouldn’t be within our ministry.

I’ve learned over the past couple years that I am not to be about the business of condemning. It’s not what I’m supposed to be about. That’s God’s arena, not mine. And I’ve figured out that I can’t change anyone either. I know a God who specializes in transformation, in transforming people, but that isn’t my job either. I’d get to full of myself, I’d become proud and not see my own need for continued transformation. No, transformation is God’s area. So if I am not about condemning, and not about forcing people to transform, then I must be about the business of finding the lost too, that I am in the business of pointing people to Christ, I am to serve Christ and those around me, but not by condemning anyone, and not by trying to remake them in my image or God’s.

This translation is from the New Revised Standard, which changes an important word for us, begotten into only. The word in the Greek text actually means unique, but only is a good translation. Begotten is an interesting word; you beget your kids, something like you, but you don’t create it. You create something that is not like yourself; like a piece of art. But we beget our kids. So when someone asks about begotten, that’s the answer. You beget something that is like you; God begets God, but He creates us, because we are not like Him. So when we read a creed that uses the word ‘begotten’, now you know. But the word in the text here isn’t begotten, but only, or unique.

Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

There is a difference. There is good and evil, despite anyone who would say evil is simply a different choice. I was reading politically corrected proverb the other day “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for ‘evil’ and ‘good’ are mere logical constructs.”

We know Jesus is the light of the world, and all people and deeds are viewed by God by this light, this standard of perfection. There is evil, there are things we don’t want anyone else to see. Jesus was just talking about love, and not coming into the world to condemn anyone, and now we’re talking about condemnation. Someone gave me a great example of this. Suppose you love music, love the symphony, love the way the music begins slowly and then it swells majestically, love the way the different instruments blend together into a beautiful, breath-taking experience, and we want to share it with someone. That someone turns out to not be a music lover. The music is interesting at first, but quickly he becomes bored, starts fidgeting, leaves after about 10 minutes to try and find some popcorn, and then when he can’t find someone to sell him popcorn or a beer, he comes back and starts complaining. He becomes more and more miserable, until finally Kaidi, I mean the person who invited him, becomes so frustrated that she tells him to go to a nearby café and wait there for her. I’m kidding about my involvement in that, but that isn’t an unrealistic scenario. What has happened is that the person has passed judgment on himself, that he has no music in his soul. The evening at the symphony was designed to bring happiness, but instead has brought judgment.

So it is when we tell someone about Jesus; that we have found contentment and peace, that we have not found judgment but love. Their experience might be the same, but it might be totally different. I have talked to people about who I have found Jesus to be, and how my life is different. Some people became Christians, and their lives are excellent, God is using them presently to build His kingdom. And others I have told my story to have been uninterested. It’s good for you, but I can’t be bothered, was their attitude. So what’s different about those two responses? I was the same, my story is the same, what is different is them, and their ability to hear and want a different life. It is the HS within them, as we were talking about last week, who prompts someone to be born from above.

Jesus didn’t come to send people to hell. He came to save those who are lost. But some who are lost want to stay lost; the lostness has become comfortable, the lostness has become home. It really is our calling to proclaim that the lost place isn’t home, but our home, as humans, was always designed to be with God. We condemn sin, but not sinners. It really is simply our job to love the best we can. We get that mixed up because we get frustrated, I think. But it is never our job to sit in judgment of other people. None of us is God. None of us, I truly believe, would want the authority to condemn people, really. Instead, we’re to lead people to Christ, we are to reach out, and leave the results to God. I know what it is like to want people desperately to become followers of Christ, but it isn’t about me. When people are ready to stop living in darkness, and we have made ourselves available, maybe they’ll find us, maybe we’ll be used by God to bring someone to Himself. But maybe we’ll not know how we were used by God to make a difference. Maybe somewhere down the line what we say and what we did will make a difference, and we’ll never know.

John 3:16 is not about us. It is about God’s grace, it is about God wanting folks to come to Him for life, for forgiveness, for grace. John 3:16 is our verse too. It is a reminder that the Christian life is about proclaiming that Jesus saves, without the condemnation. We are so calloused at this point that the fear of hell is not a deterrent any longer. But a God who knows us and loves us, that attracts people. When we go out to evangelize, be full of grace and love, because trying to force someone to become a Christian doesn’t work. It never did. I truly believe God wants followers who know Him and who love Him, not reluctant avoiders of hell, but disciples.