-Transcript-
00:36 Thank you for joining me today. Great to be at the cafe today. We are going to dive in and look at a very familiar verse of Scripture, one that is so important to who we are as Christians, and I want to focus on three aspects of this Scripture.
00:52 Specifically, we’re going to go into the Scripture here, John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
01:06 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now we see a picture somewhat of the gospel message, and I know 1 Corinthians 15,
01:21 I think it is 1 through 4, better clearly explains the whole gospel message, but we see something here, the character of God.
01:29 And we need to look at God being in control, God being sovereign, and God paying the price. And actually I’ll start with sovereignty, then the fact that he’s in control, then paying the price.
01:37 There you go, you got my outline here, and guess what? We’re gonna learn a little bit about the character of God, and this should allow us to take some of the burdens that are on our heart here today and give them to God, and rest assured that he has those burdens, that he will deal with them,
01:55 that he will deliver us from our trouble because, from our afflictions, because he is a strong tower, and he is that God, and he did the work that needed to be done, nothing that we can do, amen.
02:08 Let’s start with the idea of sovereignty. What does it mean to be sovereign? That’s a big word. What do you think of when you think of sovereign? That kingdom, maybe a jurisdiction, the definition here from the dictionary would be a supreme power or authority.
02:26 Dominion would be another word for it, supremacy. And then you have the idea of sovereignty also as autonomy, independence, self-government, self-rule. You know, you think about this.
02:41 Man, this is big, I just thought of this. The people, what did the Jews say? He was going to be their leader, and they said, we won’t have him rule over us, amen. And he ended up being crucified, amen.
02:54 And I know it wasn’t just the Jews. The Romans were involved, and if we want to get specific, we’re sinful, and we would have been involved too. We’re no better.
03:03 We’re no better. But sovereignty is the idea that one has a right to rule over others because they have that dominion, jurisdiction, supremacy, and so forth. They have that power.
03:15 And sovereignty is a big deal, I believe, with God because he is sovereign. And so we see that what he does, it’s his pleasure, his will. We don’t need to get involved in it.
03:30 We don’t need to have a plan for him. He’s already caught the plan. And now we understand that he’s sovereign, and so he could do whatever he wants.
03:36 He could say, these people are broken, Adam and Eve, they ate of the fruit. The sin curse entered humanity. Wipe them out.
03:44 We’ll start fresh with a different group, or I’ll just get rid of this. They’re too troublesome to me. You think of all the sin and how it hurts God.
03:57 And again, I spoke in the intro of how Jesus had to separate himself from God. That’s when he asks, why has he been forsaken by God on the cross? Because as he had to drink that bitter cup of sin, he had to pay that sin debt for all of humanity. God, in that moment of time, had to turn his back on Jesus and be separate from him.
04:15 And I know that that must have been excruciating for both parties. Amen. And yet God did it.
04:23 Why? Why? Well, we see in the beginning of John 3:16, for God so loved the world. He loved the world. He didn’t love the world’s system.
04:31 He didn’t love the world’s ways. He didn’t love sin and the brokenness of the world. He loved you.
04:37 He loved me. He loves us. Present tense.
04:42 Our God is alive and well. And he loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son. You think of Jesus being there at the beginning of creation, being just wonderful to God, and being so sweet and smart and precious to God.
04:58 And God has his Son and loves his Son. And his Son, his image is perfect and so forth. And God says, okay, Jesus, I’m gonna send you into this broken world.
05:07 I’m gonna give you to this broken world because in my foreknowledge, I know that when you go to that broken world, you will be spit upon, you’ll be mocked, you’ll be cheated, you’ll be given a fake trial, you will be crucified on a cross for my name’s sake, amen. You will die in this world. I’m giving you to this world to die.
05:33 But in God’s foreknowledge, he knew he would raise him again. And by raising him again, by that beautiful, glorious resurrection, amen, by that resurrection, he would allow all of us here today, all those that he loves, to be saved.
05:51 Not by anything that we could do because we couldn’t do it on our own, but by his precious blood, by that atoning blood.
06:00 I did a message once on why it had to be the blood of the Lamb. Why did it have to be the precious, spotless blood? And the idea is, we are sinful. And there’s no way to get around that because we inherited that sin.
06:09 It’s part of our DNA. And so we needed someone sinless to go ahead and die on the cross for us to pay that sin debt. Without the shedding of blood, the Bible says there’s no remission of sin.
06:21 And yet, how could Jesus be sinless if he was born of Mary? Well, he was born of a virgin. Joseph was essentially the adoptive father. And so we have a perfect Christ, a sinless Christ, shedding blood for all humanity.
06:37 And that’s why when you get into the books in the Old Testament, they all point to Jesus. They all point to his finished work on the cross. They all point all of these offerings and all of it, you know, all the numbers associated with them and the rituals and what they had to offer.
06:55 It was all pointing to what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross to atone for the sin of mankind. And that’s why the scripture says here that God so loved the only begotten Son. And then here is the qualifier.
07:11 He didn’t give his only begotten Son for anybody that goes to church, for anybody that does good deeds, for people that are naturally good looking, for folks that have a lot of money.
07:21 If these categories were the way to get to heaven, I wouldn’t be getting in. Amen.
07:26 It’s that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. Amen.
07:32 We are justified by faith. Amen. It’s by faith alone.
07:38 It’s by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. There’s nothing we can do besides believe. And you go into, I think it’s Hebrews 11, the Hebrews Hall of Fame.
07:48 It’s all about belief. Amen. It’s Abraham was justified by believing in God.
07:57 Amen. That’s the story of Abraham and Isaac who would strap up their kid to the altar. Yet he did.
08:01 The only way I believe that he did that was thinking that God was going to bring that child back. I believe as I read the commentaries on Abraham offering Isaac as God called him to do, the commentarians believed that Abraham thought God would resurrect Isaac, but God had another idea. And again, this always points back to Jesus.
08:21 There was a ram caught in the thicket, a ram signifying a young male, a lamb, the sinless, spotless lamb signifying Jesus. And that was the substitutionary death on the cross. This all points to Jesus.
08:33 Yet there’s movies made and books written that say, oh no, this idea of substitutionary death doesn’t add up. And they question it and all this false doctrine.
08:44 You know, Jesus said, there are many people that will call themselves Christ, but don’t turn to them.
08:49 And you see this, there’s so much false Christ and false religion in the world today. And there’s so many manufacturing religion that looks like the world that’s supposed to be godly. Look, inherently, when we follow Christ, it won’t look like the world.
09:05 It’ll be godly because it’s separate. That’s the whole idea of holiness. And I thank God for opening his word up and helping me understand that and helping you understand that.
09:12 And so we see here that whosoever believeth in him should not perish. The idea of faith alone is what justifies us. We are justified by faith.
09:19 That is something that really anyone could do, right? And yes, think about this now here today. The Bible says through Christ’s own words that we must be like children to enter the kingdom of God. Well, I’ve got young children, so this is relevant to me.
09:37 I love having these kids. Yes, I’ll admit I’m not always the perfect dad. I’ve had a few episodes.
09:44 I’ve yelled at him a couple times. And I love these kids so much, though. And God knows I’m working on trying to be as loving a dad as possible.
09:52 And you know what I love about these kids is you just tell them something. You could tell them that a telephone pole would freeze over, turn green, and make them a salad. And they’d say, oh, wow, that’s amazing.
10:07 You know, they believe. They have a childlike faith because they’re children. And God calls us to have that level of belief, that we just believe him in his word when he makes a promise out of John 3:16, that he loves you and he gave Jesus for you, that when you believe, what happens when you believe? You don’t perish.
10:34 You don’t perish. Why is everybody so worried all the time? Why are you worried about war? Why are you worried about famine? Why are worried about pestilence or disease?
10:41 Why are you worried about COVID-19 or this variation or that? Oh, goodness, you’re worried about dying. You’re worried about death.
10:49 And here God’s saying, look, don’t worry about death. Look, here’s my word here. And I wrote it, and it’s true.
10:55 I wrote it through the working of the Holy Spirit, through these various authors over thousands of years, and it all lines up perfectly, and it all makes sense, and all points to Jesus, and all points to this idea that if you just believe me, if you believe me, you won’t perish.
11:08 You will have everlasting life, everlasting life. Now, to me, that sounds amazing, because on this earth, as I get older, as I’m no longer in a teenager or my 20s or something, I find myself more tired and broken down and so forth, and I try to find a way to eat right or go on the treadmill or whatever it is.
11:33 But you know what it’s like getting older. It’s not fun. And you realize your mortality, you realize that there is going to be a time when maybe you won’t be here anymore.
11:41 But God is assuring us that we’ll have everlasting life. And as I understand it, we will have a resurrected body. We will have a new body that will not deteriorate under the curse.
11:51 We will not have pain or suffering. We will not have hardship. We will not work and then someone else take it.
11:58 I love that verse in the Bible, and I can’t think of it right now where it’s at, but that’s a fantastic verse, because if you’re in business, you realize you work so hard and then a little bit goes over here, a little bit goes over there, a little bit goes over here, and you end up with nothing or very little. And that’s kind of how life is. But in the next life, we won’t have that problem.
12:14 I believe as we do, we’ll be very busy. And as we farm or do things for the Lord, we will reap a great harvest. And so great to think about that eternal life.
12:27 It all comes from God, because He loves us. And the best part of that eternal life, we’ll be able to see Him face to face. We’ll be able to worship Him.
12:35 We’ll be able to ask Him questions and get straight answers. I’ve told people before, I wish sometimes when I’m preaching, whether it be in front of our congregation here,
12:47 whether it be on the radio, that the Lord could be sitting next to me or sitting across from me, holding up cue cards or just vocally telling me what to say. Yes, He works through the work of the Holy Spirit, but I’m still imperfect and I still don’t always understand things.
13:01 And I love God so much. And I just can’t wait to just say, okay, God, explain this to me. And okay, help me understand, is this of you? Is it not? And what do you think about this?
13:07 And why is it that there’s this thing going on and not this thing? And what about just all of the questions we’ll be able to ask God and be able to answer to satisfy our curiosity.
13:22 We’ll be able to praise Him. We’ll be able to thank Him. We’ll be able to meet those saints of God that gave their lives for God.
13:29 And we’ll be able to give Him glory and honor and serve with Him and serve Him. And it’d just be incredible for an eternity and He’ll never get old. And it will be just incredible.
13:37 And it all starts with the idea that God loves us, not the other way around, not that we love Him, but that He loves us and that we are sinners and that Jesus Christ died for us.
13:45 And that when we accept that free gift of salvation, hallelujah, we’re saved, we’re made new. So just please accept Jesus today.
13:54 Turn to Him, love Him, live for Him, and He will guide your steps. It’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made.
14:08 Thank you for joining me. Take care. God bless and amen.