Because God so loved the world… (2/4/18 The Book of John #16)

ATTN: Pastor Eldie, last week preached about being led by the Spirit, rather than our tradition. So many of what we do and how we do things is because we have always done it that way. I’m going to be honest, so often, when we are planning for the new year’s event, the first question is, “what did we do last year?” rather than asking, “What does God want us to do afresh this year?” And the reason is because it’s easier and familiar. We know what worked and so we will do it again this year knowing that it will work again this year. But that can easily translate to relying on our tradition rather than on God. Now, we do not want to do new things just for the sake of doing new things because that would be following the tradition of the world too – young people always want something new and never do what their predecessors did. But that’s also following the tradition of the world. But God wants us to rely on the Spirit, rather than our abilities or knowledge.

Jesus was teaching this teacher of Jews a lesson on following God. Now, the context is with the issue of being born again – living a brand new life, with a new person as our leader. We have said that being born again is done by the spirit of God. We do not decide to be born again, anymore than a child in a mother’s womb decides to put himself/herself there. And going back two weeks, Jesus taught this man, Nicodemus, that good people as well as bad people need to be born again. And being born again is being born of the water – having our sins wiped clean and of the spirit – our heart changing. But the exact nature of how this happens, we have not gotten too far into. So, jesus goes on with his lesson on being born again with the bible professor on how God works. So, today, the questions He answers are these: 1) what God has done to make us born again. 2) Why He has done it.  

1. What God has done.

What has God done to make us born again? He gave His absolute best in His Son. God so loved the world that he taught us how to live? No. God so loved the world that He gave us knowledge? No. God so loved the world that He gave us alien technology to improve life? No. He gave us His Son. What God did is not to give us a better technique, but a relationship! This gets right to the point at what the Bibles says is our greatest need and how God met it. The world think the humanity’s greatest need is technique or knowledge. What we need is a better health care system, education system, and solve housing problems… So, the problem is really external to us. And if we can just improve our environment and give more opportunities to the people, that will solve our societal problems. But the Bible sees it very differently. The problem is not external to us. The problem is us! We are what’s wrong with the world. And why have we gone wrong? Because we have severed our relationship with God. That is the problem behind every other problem. We were created to fellowship with God and live in a love relationship with God but sin entered and severed our relationship with Him… The poison entered us and started doing its work on the world, contaminating everything we touched. Every problem traces back to that. All things undesirable, all things that interfere with human flourishing and happiness trace back to a severed relationship with God – the giver of all good things. Therefore, God’s remedy is to restore that relationship by doing what? Sending His Son, a person, a relatable person, to bring us back to a right relationship with Him, and thereby making us right again.  

I will let you be the judge of which one is the better assessment of the problem with the world and with us. God’s or the world’s? We develop nuclear technology to provide energy but what do we use them for? For destroying masses of lives. We develop smartphones and social media to be better connected, but we are less connected than ever and more lonely than before because we are unable to connect deeply with anyone. What about better education? Oprah says is if people are better educated, then they will treat each other more civilly. Really? Germans were some of the best educated people in the world in early 1900, and with their advanced weaponry and science, they wiped out 6 million Jews and caused many more deaths in the world… An uneducated man will steal nuts and bolts from a railroad track. An educated man will steal the whole railroad system. The solution to our problem isn’t better technique, technology, and education.

Even churches are into techniques – I think this is the flaw of so many american churches – we are so good at organizing, structuring, advertising, running it like a corporation, rather than depending on the Spirit of God and and following His lead. Our churches are driven by the world’s definition of success – that bigger is better and more the merrier. And we are asking, what is the technique, what latest business practices can we employ to grow our church? So, young pastors read their business books more than the bible or spiritual books. Spends more time attending business seminars than praying…

Please, I’m not knocking on technology and education. I was an engineer by trade and I teach at a school. So, I think technology and education are important. But not to replace God. The moment we depend on those things rather than God, we have lost our way. Ps 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.”

What we need is not a better technique. What we need is a new heart. What we need is to be born-again in God. What we need is our relationship with God restored. And that is what God has done through His Son Jesus Christ.

 

1. Why He has done it

So, what he has done is to give us His very best in His son to restore the broken relationship to the fix the problem that is us. Then, why has he done it? Why did He give us His Son? Because he has loved us. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son– because God loved the world so much so that… he wanted to save it. That is explicit. But there is also an implicit reason why God gave us His Son. And that is because we were incapable of saving ourselves. If we could save ourselves, then God did not have to go to the dramatic measure of giving us His Son. If there was any other way we could be saved, somehow if we could be enabled to save ourselves, then Jesus the Savior would not have been necessary. But we were utterly incapable and that is why He had to do it.

Let me share with you stunning truth that I recently discovered. It should have been so obvious but I didn’t make the connection until recently. Let me ask you: The commands that God gave in the Old Testament – such as the 10 commandments – Do you think He gave us those commands that we could keep or we couldn’t keep? In other words, did God give us commands that He knew we couldn’t keep? “Of course not. Why would God give us commands that we couldn’t keep? That would be wicked. God wouldn’t do that” So we assume that the commandments He gave us are something that we could keep. But the stunning realization I had reading the Bible is that God gave us commands we couldn’t keep knowing that we couldn’t keep it. Why would He do that? So that we would go to God and say, “God, I can’t do this. You have to do it for me!”

ILL: Imagine if I gave my 4th grader daughter an AP Calculus exam to pass. “Serrie, when you pass this test, you can be my daughter, okay?” You know what my daughter will say? “Oh, daddy, you know I can’t do it. You do it for me and I will take the grade you get on it.” And that is exactly the right answer I’m looking for. God gave us the laws that He knew we couldn’t keep – not perfectly anyway. The law was to serve as a mirror to show us how far we fall short so that we would be dependent on God rather than on our own abilities. “if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” Romans 7:7

God gave us commands we couldn’t keep. That is what Jesus is telling this pharisee who tried to get to God by keeping up with the law. Jesus is not saying, try harder, is He? He’s saying, “give up. You can’t do it. Only the Spirit can do it for you!” The pharisees tried to keep the law with all their will-power and discipline. But they failed. What they should’ve realized at that point is, “I tried my hardest and I couldn’t do it. I need someone else far better than me to do it for me and give me the credit.” But rather, they were faking it – acting like they were keeping it even though they really weren’t because they thought the whole time that the purpose of the law was that whoever can keep up with it best will be accepted by God, rather than as a mirror that shows them that they are hopelessly inadequate and they needed God. And that is what Jesus came to do.1 Peter 3:18, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Don’t miss the real reason behind why Jesus saved us. He saved us because He loved us, but he didn’t save us simply to save us from sin and misery. No, He saved us so that we might be brought to God. Remember our fundamental problem? Our relationship was broken? And Jesus came to restore us that relationship so that we might be brought back to God.

APP: He came not to command us to do things, but to melt our heart to make us want to live that way. When you have a rebellious child, you can come up with all kinds of techniques and rules and regulations and he will find loopholes, reasons why those rules are unfair, constantly bumping heads… no amount of logic will do because he’s not listening to logic. He’s listening to his wrong heart. He needs a heart transplant. That is why Jesus came. Being God, He didn’t stay up there with His arms crossed waiting for the day he will pummel the rebellious son but leaving heaven’s glory, becoming a man, searching after the lost sheep, and in the process, losing his son’s life so that all those who truly understand realize his love, his heart is changed, and now He wants to obey rather than he has to obey. ILL: that is the story of the prodigal son, isn’t it? He left the 99 to find one sheep even though it would cost him his life.  

So, to recap, God gave us His Son to restore the relationship that was broken to bring us to God. And he did it because He loves us and we are incapable of bringing ourselves to Him. Now the question I promised I would answer two weeks ago: Why doesn’t God save everyone? If God loves us and He wants all men to be saved, then why doesn’t He save everyone? Why are some people perishing forever?

There is no good answer to this because it’s the wrong question. How can a question be wrong? When it’s stacked and it assumes an answer. For example, a question that goes, “Is your brother as stupid as you?” there is no good answer. Yes. or no. Either way you are admitting that you are stupid. So is the question, “why doesn’t God save everyone?’ What we are assuming is that it is better and more loving that everyone be saved than only some people be saved. So, if God is love, then why doesn’t He do the most loving thing and save everyone? That is the premise behind the question. But is the person asking this question really more loving than God? Is it possible for anyone or anything to be more loving than God? “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son!” Are you willing to give up your child for your enemy? Or if you don’t have a child, are you willing to give up your gf or mother or your most prized possession to save your mortal enemy? No? Then God is clearly more loving than you. And He created the universe that you are still trying to figure out. So he’s clearly smarter than you. So, if he’s more loving than you and smarter than you, then don’t you think what he has done is the most loving and wisest thing in letting some be saved and not the others? That’s the argument that paul makes in romans… Romans 9:19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us?For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

I believe the right question is this; Not why doesn’t God save everyone? But rather, why does God save anyone? None of us should’ve been saved. All of us should’ve been lost. If God simply let all of us go to hell, He would have done no wrong. But the wonder of wonders is that God went to the utter extreme of  sacrificing His Son to save us. And all we do is to receive Him, to believe in Him, and trust Him.  18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

 

CONC: Do you know you are loved today? More than your parents love you. More than your spouse. More than your children love you, God loves you? And it’s not this general, ethereal, feel-good kind of love, it’s very specific, personalized love for you if you are willing to be adopted as his child, and grow in Him in love and wisdom. Did you know that you can hear the voice of God specifically spoken to you through His word daily? Would you let God love you not only through the one time act on the cross but daily at the altar of His word and meditation and worship? God so loved you He gave His one and only Son…

 

We are playing with house money. We are living on borrowed time. Everything we own, everything we are, every day that we have, we didn’t deserve.