The Good News in Brief

Text John 3:16 Time 21/10/12 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

I want us to look today at what has been called the most famous verse in the Bible. Martin Luther once called it ‘The Bible in miniature’ and it has also been called “the little gospel” or “the gospel in a nutshell” and this is one of the reasons it is so famous. Our translation contains only 26 words and yet in those 26 words we have a pretty all encompassing description of what a person needs to know in order to understand the gospel.

The 1549 Anglican Prayer book says in one place Heare what coumfortable woordes our saviour Christ sayeth, to all that truely turne to him. Come unto me all that travell, and bee heavy laden, and I shall refresh you. So God loved the worlde that he gave his onely begotten sonne, to the ende that al that beleve in hym, shoulde not perishe, but have lyfe everlasting.

Convinced of the power of John 3:16 some Christians today, especially in America, have made great efforts simply to get the phrase John 3:16 out there. So you will see sometimes at big sporting events a man carrying a placard with the phrase John 3:16 on it. I guess the hope is that someone will see it, wonder what it says and so get hold of a Bible and read it. Apparently the American In- N-Out burger chain prints it inside the bottom rim of their paper cups, the clothing chain Forever 21 and Heritage (1974) print it on the bottom of their shopping bags, and Tornado Fuel Saver has it on the box. The world has got hold of it, of course, and there are even songs called John 3:16 by Wyclef Jean and others.

Well, what does John 3:16 say and who said it first?

It says very simply For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The words appear to have been spoken by Jesus but could be John's addition as he begins to round off this section. Some argue that it is more likely to be John's addition and certainly what it says about God that he gave his one and only Son can only be understood after the death if Jesus on the cross. Whoever spoke the words, this is Scripture and so is given to us by the Holy Spirit and so must be taken as true, indeed vital for us to know.

I have preached on this verse many times. It can be preached various ways but today I want you to notice five main things in this verse, the gospel in a nutshell or the gospel in brief.

1. Always begin with God

The verse begins with God For God. In that way it is like the Bible itself, which begins In the beginning God. This book of John also begins In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. As a general rule, we should always begin with God. If we fail to do that then we will run it not trouble somewhere along the way. $ I'm sure you've heard me say before that when I was in school we had to learn a thing called the kerb drill to help us cross the road. This is before the Green Cross Code and whatever else. Sometimes children would get it wrong. They would say “look left, look right, look left again, if all's clear then quick march”. In fact you should say “At the kerb halt. … look left, look right, look left again, if all's clear then quick march”. If you don't halt at the kerb, looking left and right may be irrelevant.

Each day should begin with God. Each week should begin with the Lord's Day, a day devoted to him. We want people to know about God from the youngest age. In all our thinking we want to begin with God. One of the problems we have in education today is that the thinking does not begin with God. Politicians generally believe that better buildings, better equipment, better training for teachers are the answer. Rather, we need to make sure that we begin with God. The same is true in science and in every other branch of learning. It is not difficult to find people who will say that love your neighbour as yourself is a good rule but if we want that rule to work we need to begin with God first – love God and love your neighbour. When we think about the gospel too we must begin with God. Too many people begin with man rather than God. They think that it is enough to simply say man is in great need and that if you pray to God he will help you and save you. Well, that is a way to the gospel but to really understand it properly we need to begin with God.

So that's the first point – always begin with God. In all your life, in all your thinking, begin with him. Especially when thinking about the gospel, begin with God.

2. Never forget God's love for this fallen world

What is it about this God then, the God who created all things and rules over all things, the God who will judge us all one day? For God so loved … That is the thing about God that this verse focuses on. There are many other things to say about God, it is true. We were thinking earlier about the fact he is everywhere. He is also powerful and perfect. He is eternal. He is infinite. However, he is also the God who loves. Indeed the Bible famously says God is love. This comes out both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Exodus 35:5-7 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. He is (Nehemiah 1:5) the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love.

Near the end of 2 Corinthians Paul says the God of love and peace will be with you. The reason we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us is that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:44).

Love always has an object and here it is the world. Now we use the word world in different ways. When we talk about travelling the world we mean something different to feeding the world and something else again when we talk about not following the world and its ways. The Bible certainly uses the word world in various ways – as many as seven according to one writer. What is its meaning here? Some assume it must mean every person who ever has or ever will live. It is far more likely, however, that the word is being used in the sense of the fallen world, the wicked world of sin that opposes God – the world that lies in the lap of the evil one. As one writer puts it, it may seem to us an amazing thing that God loves the whole world but he is God – that is like being impressed with a blacksmith who can carry a whole mustard seed in the palm of his hand! No, the amazing thing is not that God should love this great whole planet but that he should love a wicked and rebellious world, the world that would crucify his Son and that even now is in open rebellion against him. Despite its wretchedness and sin, God loves the world.

In a sermon on this text Spurgeon noted how great the love of God is in that it is seen in

1. The gift it led to – God’s very own Son. We will come to that next.

2. The plan of salvation – God’s purpose to save a people for himself in this very way.

3. Who salvation is available to – As we have said, the point is not that God loves the vast world but that he loves this rotten world. Who did he love? Those worthy of it? No! He loved rotten sinners like us. Romans 5:8 God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

So when you think of this world in all its rottenness and sin and you are tempted to simply despise it. Remember this – God loves it, God loves it a great deal. And this should give us hope.

3. Know that God gave to the world his One and only Son

Now if love is real and not a mere sentiment or mere words then it will lead to action. Here we read that God's love for this world was so great that he gave his one and only Son. In 1 John 4:9, 10 John says This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. In Titus 3:4 Paul refers to the coming of Christ as the time when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared.

Several writers tell the story of a family somewhere in a time of famine coming to the conclusion that the only way they can raise money is by selling one of their sons into slavery. But which one can they give up? As they think it through they realise it is impossible and conclude it will be better for them all to die than to sell one. I can identify. Which of my five sons would I willingly give up if I had to? Not my first and eldest, not my youngest and neediest and none of the ones in the middle either. Yet God, we are told, so loved the world that he gave up his one and only Son for the world. It is not one of the angels that God gave but his very own Son. He didn't lend him either, rather he gave him. He did not spare him so that he might by this means save us who believe.

Spurgeon mentions an aged minister of whom it was said ‘Whatever his text he never failed to set forth God as love and Christ as the atonement for sin’. This is what this text teaches us so clearly – God’s great love and the sending of his Son to deal with sin by means of his holy life and his death on the cross.

Spurgeon also speaks of

1. Who he gave – his own dear Son. It is clear from Scripture that God is a Trinity and it is the Father who has sent the Son into this world.

2. How he gave – He gave him willingly and purposefully in order to make salvation certain.

3. When he gave – The coming of Christ was, of course, something that occurred in history. However, he is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world and it is in eternity that this wonderful redemption was planned – the Father’s plan was formulated before the beginning of time. Even then the Father was willing to send and the Son was willing to go. He actually came, however, at a specific point in time.

What an encouragement this is. God has given his very own Son. In Romans 8:32 Paul says He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

4. Realise how important it is for you to believe in Christ

Now in view of what God has done for this world what does God require from us? What must I do to escape destruction and to receive eternal life? That is made very clear here. God has given his Son so That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Faith is the thing that is needed – trust in Jesus Christ. ‘But what is faith?’ you say to me. It is not simply a matter of accepting certain facts intellectually. It is not merely a matter of feelings either. What is called for is an unreserved trust in Jesus Christ. Spurgeon again helpfully speaks of it like this

1. You must firmly and willingly give cordial assent to the truth. Some do not accept the fact that Jesus is God come in the flesh – that he lived and died and rose as it is described for us in Scripture. Without accepting that we cannot even begin to believe. This is basic.

Do you accept these facts?

2. You need to accept these facts for yourself. It is possible to accept the facts but then say ‘But that has nothing to do with me. It’s all in the past.’ True faith sees that Jesus’s coming was for them. True faith can say ‘he lived and died and rose again and that can set me free. It can save me.’

3. Finally, there must be personal trust. Can you say ‘Living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sins far away’? $ Just as in the OT the one making a sacrifice would identify with the animal by putting his hands on the animal’s head so we must closely and personally identify with the Saviour. He must be ‘My Saviour’ ‘My Lord’. Can you say with Paul He loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20)?

In the NT faith is described in various different ways. 

• Faith is coming to Jesus (John 6:35 I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty). Come to Jesus today.
• It is receiving Jesus (Colossians 2:6, Revelation 3:20, John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God). Receive him today. Open your heart.
• It is to build your life on Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:20). Is he your foundation?
• It is called putting on Christ (Galatians 3:27 for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ) – like putting on a coat. Have you put on Christ?
• It is like eating or drinking (John 6). Are you feeding on his flesh and drinking his blood as it were?
• It is a matter of commitment (2 Timothy 1:12 I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day). Have you entrusted/committed all to him? You won’t regret it.
• It is looking to Jesus (John 3:17, Hebrews 12:2). Are you doing that today?

Each of these pictures underlines how simple faith is and how suited it is to what is required. Nothing could be easier than to come, to eat, to look, etc. In each case, as well, although something is required from us, we need to depend on someone or something outside us (what we put on, what we drink, the one we commit everything to, etc). I’m sure that is why it is by faith that God chooses to save.

We usually know when we have truly trusted in Christ as it leads to peace, a new heart, holiness, good deeds, overcoming world, the inward testimony of the Spirit and a special regard to Christ.

I do want to underline that Whoever - whatever your background, whether you are wealthy or poor, intelligent or not so intelligent, young or old, whatever your religious background, etc. What matters is not us but him. Look to him! Look only to him. Not just sometimes but always. If we have already come to believe then let’s seek to believe more, to grow stronger in faith. Ask God to increase your faith.

5. Understand that you will perish unless you trust in him

The final words of the verse are shall not perish but have eternal life. Here we see why faith in Christ is so absolutely vital. It is so that

1. Negatively - They may not perish as they would be otherwise. We tend to think that for some reason we all deserve to go to heaven. The truth is, however, that we have all broken God’s Law. We are all guilty sinners and so we all deserve his judgement in hell. All we like sheep have gone astray. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Cf John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.

Have you realised this of yourself? You are a sinner, guilty before God, deserving of hell and damnation. However, through Jesus Christ you can be delivered. You can be saved from destruction. Like a man condemned to death being told there is a reprieve. What glorious good news!

2. Positively – So that they may have eternal life through him. The positive side is that God has provided a way for sinners not only to be delivered from perishing but also to receive the gift of eternal life – everlasting life in Christ.

Do you see that that is what Jesus Christ has purchased for sinners by his coming and living and dying and rising again?

Conclusion

In a sermon on this text the puritan John Flavel makes two helpful applications.

1. Consider the preciousness of a soul. 1 Peter 1:18, 19 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

2. To slight or reject Christ is the greatest evil. Hebrews 2:3 How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

I want to end by referring to a well-known way of illustrating this verse. It is clear here that in giving his Son God has given the greatest gift there can be and that gift is freely given. However we need to take it. To illustrate sometimes an evangelist will hold out a £5 note/packet of sweets for kids and say ‘Here is a free gift for anyone who wants it’. Usually no-one takes it (unless they’ve seen it done before!). They think there must be some catch but there isn’t. God offers salvation to you today. 

• You may say ‘I don’t want it’ but that just shows that you really don't understand heaven or hell.
• You may say ‘I don’t believe this free gift is available’ but this verse is very plain. It is.
• It’s tempting to say ‘I’ll think about it’ but there is no guarantee of a future offer.
• Perhaps you say ‘But surely I have to earn it in some way’ but no, you simply need to receive it.