God So Loved

John 3:16

INTRO: Definitions of Love

“To feel deep affection for someone”

“To like or enjoy something very much”

John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

I. THE EMBODIMENT OF LOVE

For God so loved...

Caricatures of God

1. The Grumpy God

2. The Game God

3. The Guessing God

4. The Genie God

5. The Giving God

II. THE EXTENT OF HIS LOVE

The Dilemma: We are trying to understand concepts about an infinite, eternal Being with a finite, mortal mind.

Truth: There is tension in Scripture.

Two conclusions to tension:

1. This doesn’t make sense

2. I am incapable of making sense of it

“World,” Gk. κοσμος, “entire human race”

John 3:10 - “Are you not the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”

Amos 3:2 - “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 7:6 - “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Also translate: “For in this way God loved the world”

Galatians 3:28 - “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Ephesians 2:12 - “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

III. THE EXPRESSION OF LOVE

"Only begotten" μονογενης. Unique, One of a kind

John 1:1 & 14

Acts 2:23 - “And this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge Of God!”

Revelation 13:8 - “And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb who has been slain.”

Revelation 13:8 - “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

IV. THE EXPECTATION OF HIS LOVE

Belief=faith

Faith: “Taking God at His word”

John 3:14 - “And 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.”

Numbers 21:8-9 - “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.”

Truth: Faith in Jesus doesn’t just mean acknowledging that He can save me, but it also means acknowledging what He is saving me from.

Romans 3:23 - “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Romans 6:23 - “The wages of sin is death.”

V. THE EXTENSION OF LOVE

Jeremiah 31:3 - “I have loved you with an everlasting love..."