John 3:16 (2)

The following is the second part of a message i recently preaching on John 3:16. I was dependent for outline in inspiration on Ray Ortland Jr's book, The Gospel, which you should buy!

The next phrase tells us what He does, He sends His only Son! This is once and for all the proof of God’s love to us. It’s a spreading love, a concrete love, a giving love. God gave willingly, and Jesus came willingly. He is the only Son! There’s no one else like Him. He doesn’t have equals, He doesn’t have a competitor, He is the only Son of God. Everything in the Bible leads up to His remarkably unremarkable appearance. Every moment and movement of history is about Him and Him. He alone is our hope, our Saviour, our joy and our chance to have a relationship with God. Into our cold, dark, loveless world, stepped love, and light and hope Himself. Only Jesus is the proof that God loves us.

And what a love it is! Jesus didn’t come to start a new religion. He didn’t come to give us a how-to program, or twelve steps to a better weekend. He came to start humanity all over again. He didn’t come to give us things to do, He came to make us new. Jesus life was obedient to God. We don’t do that, we can’t obey God, we can’t live lives that line up fully with His Word. We can’t obey. Jesus death was sacrificial. That was the plan all along, and we can’t do that. We can’t die for someone else’s sins, and our death doesn’t rescue us from the punishment our sins deserve. Jesus resurrection was victorious. That’s what we need. We need victory over sin, we need rescue from death. But we can’t do it. We can’t do anything we need so Jesus did all of it. Jesus is everything we could never be!

Our culture, and every religion is based on the idea of people getting what they deserve. In the Gospel we learn that we deserve nothing, but that because He loves us, in Christ, God gives us everything.

And this love saves us from death, and gives us life. whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Those are the only two options on the table. Death or life. Death doesn’t mean to cease or to stop. It doesn’t mean oblivion. It means the everlasting torment of eternity away from the love of God. Away from the goodness of God, in the cold, dark, sin filled place called Hell. That’s one choice, and the other choice is life. Life is know Jesus Christ, life is the opposite of the horrors of Hell, it’s the joys of Heaven. But those are the only two choices. We don’t like to think about death, we don’t like words like perish, but we’re forced to by this verse.

So how can we escape perishing? How can we make sure we’re headed for life not death? How can we be sure that Christ’s death pays for our sins? Because of the phrase we skipped. Whoever believes in Him. Believes doesn’t mean what we often think it means. It doesn’t mean to agree with something or like something. like believing in recess or ice-cream. It means to become part of, to believe into. The one who believes has Christ as the centre of their life, and the centre of their plans. He’s not the side dish anymore, He’s not a weekend distraction, He’s the main course.

What matters then is not how good or how bad we are, but whether or not we believe in Christ. Whether or not we’re ‘in Him.’ God, in His love, has proved His love by giving us His Son. We must walk out of the darkness into the light and accept Him, or face everlasting death. God has made things simple, do you believe in Jesus? Are you 'in' Him?

John 3:16 (1)

The following comes from a recent message i preached on John 3:16. I was dependent for outline and inspiration on Ray Ortland Jr's excellent book, The Gospel, which you should go and buy.

I was reading the other day that more than 75% of car wrecks take place less than 10 minutes from where the people involved in the wrecks live. Most of the wrecks you get into will be within walking distance fo your own front door, or the front door of the other person in the wreck. This was because when we get close to home, and on familiar roads, we pay less attention that in a place that we don’t know very well. I think we have the same danger with tonight’s Bible verse. We are so familiar with John 3:16 we could probably quote it in our sleep. But this is the most famous verse in the Bible for a reason, and it’s a reason worth paying attention to.

It’s the most succinct, meaning short and accurate, presentation of the Gospel. John 3:16 is about the Gospel and you, so let’s walk thru it one phrase at a time and see what truth we can unpack from it. And as we do, let’s be praying that the Lord would speak to our hearts, and help us understand the truth of the Gospel in this verse.

For God so loved the world. What we think about when we think about God is the most important thing about us. If we think God is a cat, or an ice cream, that’s going to impact the way we live. If we don’t think there is any God at all, that’s going to impact the way we live. A lot of people think God is just a friendly old man in the sky. He wishes we’d do better, love more and sin less, but he loves us anyway. He’s a bit lonely, a bit boring, and just loves it when we come and visit with him. That’s the view that a lot of people, even in the church, have of God.

But that’s not who God is at all. In Genesis 17:1 God says, ‘I am God almighty.’ He is almighty! There’s no one that compares with Him, there’s no one who can approach Him in power and control and might. He needs to tell us that He is almighty because we so often forget. We need to remember, when we’re hopeless, when all the odd seem against us, when we seem to have no future, that God is almighty! We don’t have to dream or expect small things from God, we can do dream big and attempt great things fo us. This is who God is! Almighty!

And, we’re told, God loves the world. This is a surprise, or at least it should be. The world is not lovely. You and I are not lovely, our culture is not lovely. We are not lovable. But God is. God is lovely, and His love overflows onto and into you and me! God is light, but you and I love darkness. We’d rather have things our own way all the time in the darkness of sin that step out into the love of God. This is how we’re born. In John 3:19 we’re told that ‘light came into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’ We reject God, the light, and so does our culture, because our deeds are evil. Remember when Jesus was fishing with the disciples, and because of Him they pulled in so many fish that their nets broke? Peter told Jesus to get away from Him because he was a sinful man. Our sin can not bear to be near the holiness of God. Isaiah cried out ‘woe is me,’ when he saw the light of God in Isaiah 6.

There’s a great movement in our culture at the moment that the most important thing is self esteem. The most important thing is that we feel good about ourselves. The great sin of 2014 is making someone feel bad about themselves. The Bible tells us that our problem is we don’t feel bad enough about ourselves. We don’t realize how deadly our sin is, we don’t realize how evil our rebellion against God is. When we do realize that, we realize all the more how extraordinary God’s love for us is. God would be perfectly just if He cast us off into the hopeless, cold, dark world we’ve created for ourselves. But He doesn’t...

What did the Lamb Do?

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, 'behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'

John 1:29

Isn't it good news that Jesus takes away our sin? That he covers it, atones for it and ransoms us from it's penalty and power. It's the shed blood of Jesus, and His substitution death and resurrection that makes the good news good.

When John the Baptist sees Jesus and calls Him the lamb of God he is speaking fluent Old Testament . What was the purpose of the lamb? To die, to shed blood, to cover the sins of God's people. Once a year on the day of atonement, the priest would enter the most holy place, sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat, and when he came out into the daylight again Israel breathed a sigh of relief knowing that another's blood had been accepted as a sacrifice for their sin. Their sin demanded death, and death had occurred.

Those lambs didn't die as an example. They didn't die to show people how to obey, or how much it costs to follow God. They died to cover sin. And Jesus is the ultimate one who died to cover sin. The death of a lamb can not pay for the sin of a man. If i write off your car, you're not satisfied when i draw you a picture of a car and give that to you. Justice has not been served, and God is just.

It's good news that Jesus didn't come to set us an example. It's good news that we're not supposed to have faith in God like Jesus had faith in God. Good, good news.How monumentally depressing it would be to sit in the side room off my kitchen, cradling my coffee, trying to warm my heart up with the news that Jesus was my example. That's awful news, bad news, heart cooling news. Imagine saying, every morning, today, you must be holy like Jesus, you must be pure like Jesus, you must love God like Jesus, you must love man like Jesus, and if you don't, you've no hope. I just wouldn't get out of bed.

Instead, much better news the Gospel brings. Jesus purity paid for my impurity. His white hot devotion covers my mumbled inattentiveness, His obedience covers my disobedience and His love my selfishness. What extraordinary news! What liberating news! I'm not supposed to have faith in God like Jesus had faith in God, i'm supposed to have faith in Jesus.

In His life lived for me, His body broken for me, His blood shed for me, His resurrection won for me. In His wounds i find comfort, because they don't say 'do better,' they say 'job done.' The risen Christ doesn't say 'go thou and do likewise,' He says 'come and have breakfast.'

Then, and only then, if my service worth a rip. When i remember the 'dones' of the Gospel, my 'dos' are the overflow of love, of joy at the death Christ died for me. To take the substitution of Christ out of the call to obey is to gut the Gospel of it's goodness and power. Christ has come to take away your sin, rejoice, and have faith in Him.

Hungry Beggars

Let me start with a statement: religious activities are only valuable insofar as they open our eyes to Jesus.

By Religious activities i mean things like church attendance, Bible reading, baptism and communion and sharing our faith. They only have as much value as they give us of Jesus. By themselves, sitting in a cathedral/movie theatre/somewhere in between, has no value. By itself, memorizing an old book has little value outside pure aesthetics. Eating and drinking inside that building may fill our stomachs (a tiny bit) but has no value beyond that. Unless...unless we remember, and know, and revive these things as full of meaning, full of blessings, and full of glory. Unless, in other words, these things open our eyes to Jesus.

You should go to church. The more i think about it, and the more i see it, the more i think that your attitude to church is a direct reflection of your attitude towards Jesus. The Bible doesn't tell Christians to go to church any more than it tells us to keep breathing oxygen.

We should read our Bibles. If you ignore your spouse except when you're in trouble no one thinks you have a good marriage. If you only talk to your friends when you need a favour, then they won't be your friends for very long.

You should take part in the ordinances of the church. If you aren't baptised, and skip communion, you probably don't understand the death and resurrection of Jesus. And you need to understand these things.

You should share your faith. How can we say 'look at my new clothes,' or 'did you see that goal,' but never 'do you know Jesus?' We talk about the things we love, we can't help ourselves.

But, none of these things, by themselves, mean a rip if they don't help us to see Jesus. Life is about seeing Jesus. Life is knowing Jesus, as He prays in John 17:3. Growth is about seeing Jesus, as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:17. There's a scene in the first Matrix movie where Neo complains that his eyes hurt. Morpheus tells him that it's because he's using them for the first time. To see Jesus with our ears, eyes and heart is to use them for their purpose. It might hurt for a while. It's supposed to.

So read the Bible. But read it like a hungry beggar who has happened upon a feast, not a detached literary critic, or a 10th grader learning algebra. 'Open my eyes so that i might see wonderful things...'

Commit to seven day a week church life. But not to collect a token, not because you may live in the only corner of the world remaining where people will talk about you if you're not in church. Commit to church because Jesus is committed to church, commit to church because that's where you belong. 'Open my eyes so that i might see wonderful things...'

Be baptised, celebrate communion. But not because 'that's what happens at church,' but because these ceremonies are filled with life and meaning by the risen Lord. Because we have been lifted out of the water, and we must feast on His flesh to live. 'Open my eyes so that i might see wonderful things...'

Share your faith. Tell your friends, and co-workers and neighbors to come with you because you'll do them good. Overflow with Jesus when people ask you about your weekend. So live and so speak that the aroma of Christ floats around you. 'Open their eyes, so they might see wonderful things...'

Christianity is seeing Jesus. Make sure your glasses are on straight.

On Discipleship

All Christians are disciples.

All people are disciples because everyone follows someone.

Discipleship is following Christ, because disciples follow their Lord. So how best to think about Christian discipleship? I think there are two words that capture it, mystery, and exposure.

Discipleship is all about exposure, Christian growth is all about exposure. 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 teaches us this. We all with unveiled face are being change as we look on the glory of God in the face of Christ. That verses teaches us the goal of discipleship, change, and the route to that goal, beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ. Christians become what they behold, we really are what we eat. If the goal of discipleship is change, incremental, lifelong, change, then the mechanics of discipleship must involve getting people to look at Jesus.

This must happen individually. We can wander round aimlessly hoping that God will speak through a song, or a sunset, or a waterfall, or we can open the Bible and actually listen to Him! And see His glory in the face of His Son, and be changed. If Christianity really is a relationship, then this is where the relationship happens. We speak to God in prayer, He speaks to us, and changes us through His Word.

This must also happen corporately. When the church is gathered the Word must be preached, or whatever just happened wasn't church. The word must be preached and sung, and eaten and drunk. Meetings doesn't equal discipleship, but discipleship happens in meetings.

If you really want to be disciple, you must be looking at Jesus, and looking at Him so hard and so long that eventually you see the whole world through Him. And if we want people to be disciple, we must be setting up these encounters.

And discipleship is a mystery. We can't just 'do it.' It doesn't just happen, mostly. Jesus tells Nicodemus that the wind blows wherever it wishes, and we hear it's sound, but we do not know where it comes from, or where it goes. So it is with everyone who has been born of the Spirit. We don't see the Holy Spirit, but we see His effects. John 3:8 is a death knell to anyone who believes that discipleship can be programmed, it can't be. As we're exposed we expect to see growth, but it doesn't always follow.

The mystery is sometimes this growth is incremental. It's slow, and you see it over a number of years. And if we accept that discipleship is for life, we're ok with this. Incremental growth won't please those who are looking for the thunder and lightening, for the microwave effect, but this is how it happens most of the time. You look over a course of two years, and see you've changed, but there was no lightbulb moment, it just happened.

Sometimes it happens in a flash, and sometimes it doesn't happen at all, because the Holy Spirit blows where He wishes.

We need to be exposed. We need to be looking at the light. And as we're exposed, we need to trust in that gradual, lifelong growth. We need to trust that results will come as the Spirit has His way. This is counter cultural, because it's slow. But it's Biblical, and it should be happening in our churches.

True Beauty

Why do we sin? The Bible tells us it's because we enjoy it, at least on some level. That our hearts are so sick that we gladly turn our back son the fountain of life giving water and drink out of man made cisterns instead. That instead of swimming in the ocean of God's goodness, we'd rather drown in a muddy puddle, sucking dirty water from the ground.

But we don't see sin like that do we? We see sin as attractive, fun, beautiful even. That's why, or one of the reasons at least, that John saw what he saw in Revelation 9. The middle chapters of Revelation are some of the hardest i've ever preached through. Not because of the manifold interpretations of those chapters, but because of the undoubted truth that they proclaim. Whether you see the ghastly locusts and terrifying armies of Revelation 9 as symbolic of the devils activities from day one, or an historical prophesy of actual famine and wars (or, as i'm increasingly beginning to, both) the message is clear. Pull the beautiful mask away from sin, and the truth is as ugly as it gets.

We don't see casual lustful glances as ugly as locusts with lions teeth, but we should. We don't see the materialism that takes money from the offering plate as awful as a deadly sting that doesn't kill, but we should. We don't see the joy we pursue as if this life is all we have like sulphur breathing horses, but we should. And Revelation 9 helps us to.

So is this the key to our sanctification? Just grit our teeth, remember that what looks attractive really isn't, and life our lives in a state of stoic denial? Luckily our maker knows us better than that!

In John 17:26 Jesus prays that the love the Father has for Him might be in us. That is, that we might see Jesus as beautiful, as attractive, as lovely as He really is. This is the key to taking our gaze off the shiny trinkets of the world, this is the way we see sin for what it is, by seeing something better. Next to the blazing midday sun of the love of God in Christ, sin looks like a candle, next to the fullness of joy in the presence of our Lord, sin looks like the loss that it is.

So we pray, we pray for eyes to see the world as it really is. We pray like the bride in the Song, for help to find our beloved as we wander through the city. We open the Bible, and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to us, and make us sick with love by faith in Him, not by sight in the world.

We sin, not because our desires are too strong, but because they are too weak. In the Bible we find a love stronger than death, a love strong enough to satisfy our every desire, forever.