Well, turn with me in your Bibles to John, John chapter three. John chapter three.

Our text for this morning’s message is probably the most famous verse in the whole world, and that is John 3:16. You see John 3:16 all over the place. You see it on billboards, you see it on bumper stickers, you see it on coffee cups, you name it, you see John 3:16 everywhere. In fact, it’s what Tim Tebow had on his eye black when he played football. You see it in the stands of most major sporting events on signs that they’re holding. You see people on the side of the road holding signs that say John 3:16. The reference itself, John 3:16, is probably one of the most recognizable icons that we see in our world. When people see it, they know that’s a verse from the Bible, and that’s what Christians are about. But how many people actually know what John 3:16 means? In fact, sometimes I wonder if the people who could quote John 3:16 to you even know what it really means. John 3:16 is often used almost as a weapon to attack different theological points of view.

For example, you’ll hear people say, well it says whosoever, so that means that election is false because it’s for whosoever. Yes, you’ll hear folks say that. I’ve heard people say that as well. But nevertheless, John 3:16, again, is one of the most well-known verses in the whole world. In fact, reading about what different preachers have said and thought about John 3:16 this week, it was very interesting.

The preacher G. Campbell Morgan. He said, this is a text that I’ve never attempted to preach on, though I’ve gone around it and around it. It’s too big. When I’ve read it, there is nothing else to say. So he just chose not to preach on it. Then you have the other extreme. Henry Morehouse began to preach when he was 16 years old, and he died early in his life. But every time he stood to preach, he gave as his text, John 3:16. So you have two extremes there, avoiding it altogether or only preaching John 3:16. I think we need to kind of come in the middle here somewhere. Another man, Dr. Ralph Smith, once said, one of my minister friends has made more than 600 outlines of John 3:16. 600, that seems crazy to me. But the central truth of John 3:16 is the immeasurable, unfathomable love of God for mankind.

Again, you have another example in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. They have a life-sized statue that depicts the crucifixion. And I’m not condoning making such an image, but near that image, there is a plaque that reads, this is how God loved the world. And that comes from John 3:16. And this is actually what I named the sermon this morning, even before I found that illustration. But the name of the sermon is, How God Loved the World. Because that’s what we see here in John 3:16. This verse asks us to consider how it is that God loved the world. And again, that’s the task before us here this morning. We are in the middle of John chapter three, and we’ve seen the last few weeks, Jesus’ discussion, his encounter with the Pharisee, Nicodemus.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, and he approached Jesus, and he says, we know you’re a teacher that has come from God. And that would be much the same way that Nicodemus saw himself. Nicodemus was coming to Jesus as an equal, but Jesus confronted Nicodemus with the truth, the very truth that he needed, and that was that he needed to be born again. And we talked about what all that means and what that entails, but Nicodemus was baffled. He could not understand what Jesus was saying, what he was talking about, or at least he did not want to accept what Jesus was saying. So again, Jesus confronts him and he says, are you the teacher of Israel? And you do not know or understand these things.

And then as we saw last week, after that rebuke, Jesus takes him to the Old Testament. He takes Nicodemus to the Old Testament that he would know very well to prove the point that he was making. And he showed Nicodemus who he is and why he came. He told Nicodemus he is the son of man that has come down, that has descended from heaven. And then he told Nicodemus that just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up. And the reason why this must happen is so that all who believe will in him have eternal life. So in the course of this conversation with Nicodemus from the Old Testament, Jesus has given him the gospel. Jesus told him what he needed to believe in order to be saved. Jesus told him what he would believe if he was truly born again.

And that brings us to our text today. We ended there in verse 15. And today what we see in John chapter three is really a reflection on this conversation with Nicodemus. And this reflection runs through verse 21 as I read the whole section in our service earlier. But this whole section is one of the clearest depictions of the gospel in all of scripture. There’s a reason why this verse is one of the most popular verses in the world. Because when properly understood, it is the most profound truth you will ever hear. And as we consider this one verse this morning, John 3, 16, we will see three aspects of the gospel in this one verse. Three aspects of the gospel. And we’ll divide this text this way. We’ll see, first of all, the pleasure of God. And then the plan of God. And lastly, we will see the purpose of God. That is all contained here in this one verse. So let me read John 3:16 for us this morning. I’m sure many of you could quote it along with me. But John 3:16, this is the word of the Lord. 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.”

This is God’s inspired word given through the hand of the Apostle John. And there are times in scripture, especially in John’s writing, where The words of Jesus and the commentary of John can sometimes be hard to determine where one begins and where one ends. That’s what we see here in this text. It’s not always clear when John switches from Jesus’ words to his own remarks on what Jesus said. In the early century or the time when this was written, they didn’t have punctuation marks or quotation marks or anything like that. All the words ran together.

So later on, translators had to try to figure out where quotes were and where they were not. And this section is one of those places where it is really hard to see whether or not this is still a conversation with Nicodemus. or whether this is Jesus’ explanation maybe to his disciples about Nicodemus, or even it could be John’s commentary on what Jesus had just explained. So I know in some of your Bibles, the letters here are all red. Usually the translators that do a red letter edition Bible, they will try to mark out the words of Jesus in red, which I don’t love. But either way, if these words are red in your Bible, the color of the ink in your Bible is not what is inspired. by God. That’s just a decision translators have made to try to help see where Jesus’ words are. So if this is read and we may not see it as Jesus’ exact words, that’s okay. If I had to give an opinion, I think this is John explaining what Jesus just said to Nicodemus, and I’ll show you why in a moment.

But the last thing Jesus said to Nicodemus is as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life. And then the very next word in John 16 is for. For is an explanatory conjunction, a connection word. So verse 16 is clearly in reference to what came before it. It is explaining what Jesus meant by he being lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness and whoever believes will have eternal life. And you see that there’s a change in the language here. When Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, he’s saying, truly, truly, I say to you. He said that three times as he introduces new thoughts. He starts with the truly, truly, I say to you, and he’s speaking in direct address. But here, starting in verse 16, everything is introduced by a for. And all of the verbs are now past tense, as if this has already happened.

So you can see a little bit of difference and change in the grammar of this section. But regardless of exactly who’s speaking, it doesn’t change the truth of what is in this passage. This is the teaching of Jesus. And whether it’s John’s words or Jesus’ words really doesn’t matter because it is the clearest example of the gospel that we see in the whole Bible. The very first aspect of the gospel we see here is number one, the pleasure of God. The pleasure of God in the gospel. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world.

Now this opening line of John 3:16 is sometimes been understood as a highlight of the degree to which God loves the world. As if to say, God loved the world so much that he sent his only begotten son. And so that’s often how this has been understood. And it’s true that the degree of God’s love did motivate his sending of the son. His sending of his son demonstrates for us the degree of his love. God does love us infinitely. But the idea being communicated in this text is not necessarily the idea of how much God loves us. It is more the manner in which God showed us his love. This word translated so in our Bible, it has the idea of in this way, or this is how. It is more of an old-fashioned use of the word so.

So think about when you say I told you so. Or, do this like so. Now it’s not talking about the degree and how to do it, it’s talking about do it in this way. And so, as we see this in John 3, 16, you could say that, it could be translated, for God loved the world in this way. Or, this is how God loved the world. Which makes complete sense, if these comments are explaining what Jesus just said. He just said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that all who believe will in Him have eternal life, for this is how God loved the world. That’s what that means. This is how God loved the world, what Jesus just explained. The Son of Man being lifted up is how God loved the world, and this is how the Bible speaks about The gospel in other places.

Think of Romans 5:8. But God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. It’s the same idea. God’s motive for giving his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, was the unfathomable love of evil and sinful people. in the world of fallen humanity. It was God’s love for us that was the reason He sent His Son.

And listen to this verse from Isaiah 53 verse 10, but Yahweh was pleased to crush Him. He was pleased, it pleased God to crush His own Son, putting Him to grief. Now this is not making God the Father into an abusive father. That’s not why it pleased Him. It pleased Him because it was satisfying the punishment, the penalty for sin for those who would believe in Him. It was creating for Himself a people. It was bringing in His chosen people. It pleased God to do that. It pleased God to crush Him. It had to be his love for us, but not because we are so lovely. All humanity is utterly sinful and completely lost, and we are unable to save ourselves. By any effort or cleaning ourselves up, there is absolutely nothing that any man could do that would attract God’s love. Instead, he loved us because he sovereignly determined to do so.

This is an indescribable gift. It’s not as though we did anything that could earn any sort of a gift from God, and yet he chooses to give a gift that we can’t even fathom. This is an indescribable gift. That’s what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 15. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. You cannot accurately describe how great of a gift this is. Our salvation comes from, like Paul says in Titus 3, the kindness and affection of God our Savior. John writes in his letter, 1 John 4, verse 10, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us. And he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. It’s not that we loved God. That’s not why he did it. He did it because he loved us. And later on, verse 19 of 1 John chapter four, we love because he first loved us. This is the gospel.

The love of God is so vast and so wonderful and immeasurable and incomprehensible to us that instead of telling us how much God loves us, John couldn’t do that. He couldn’t say how much God loves us. Instead he writes, this is how. God has demonstrated His love, or He’s shown His love to us. This is how God loved the world. He gave His Son. He gave His Son. This is how God loved the world. And we see the term the world there. What does it mean that He loved the world? That word can mean a lot of different things in Scripture. Sometimes we see it referred to the evil system of Satan. And we know that’s not what God loved. We also see that in 1 John we’re told, do not love the world or the things of the world.

So it’s gotta be a different sort of use of that term here. There are other times where the world means all people, every single person. and other times where it means non-Jewish people. So there’s a lot of different ways that the word world can be used. This usage here, the best way to understand, I believe, is humanity in general, in the sense that people from all places in the world, not necessarily every single individual, but people from around the world, People from every tribe and tongue and nation. All people without distinction. Because you see, the Jew could easily see how God loves Israel and people from Israel, but what is radical in the gospel is that God loves people from outside of Israel. God has sent his son for people outside Israel.

It is a distinctively Christian idea that God can save all people. And that’s why it was such a controversial thing for the Jews to hear that God had saved and loves the Gentiles too. And Paul explains that that’s the mystery of God. It’s his mystery revealed to us in the New Testament, that not only did God love the Jews, he loved the Gentiles too, and he’s bringing them in. His love is not confined to any national group or ethnicity. It is a love that proceeds from the fact that God is love. And thank the Lord that it is not restricted only to one ethnicity or most of us wouldn’t be saved.

But God had chosen to bring in people from outside Israel, to save Gentiles. It is His nature to love. God is love. He loves people because of the God that He is. And because of who He is, He sent His Son, the Savior, into the world. And in all the world, there is only one way to be saved. There is only one way to be saved, and that is through His Son that He sent. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:19 uses the word world in a similar way. He says, 2 Corinthians 5.19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Not counting their transgressions against them. Reconciling the world to himself. Not in the sense of a universal salvation where everybody is saved now. but in the sense that the world has no other reconciler. And the one way to be saved, whether you’re Jew or Greek or any other ethnicity in the world, every tribe, tongue, and nation must be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. He is the one Savior.

He is the Savior for the world. The only Savior that the world has. And God loved us. and sent his son. And he inspired John to write about it. For God so loved the world. That’s the first aspect of the gospel that we see, the pleasure of God. The gospel is founded in the love of God. And the next element of the gospel we see is the plan of God. It starts with the pleasure of God and then we see the plan of God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. That He gave. Salvation is completely a gift. It is undeserved. It is not for sale. It is completely free of charge to you. It isn’t free in the sense that nobody paid for it. It’s free because it was already paid for.

Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, we know that one well. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works so that no one may boast. If we had an ability to earn or to accomplish or to purchase our salvation in any way, in the smallest way, then we could boast about it. Not of works so that no one may boast. There really are no words that adequately describe the magnitude of God’s gift to the world. As Paul said, it’s indescribable. The father gave his only begotten son. The word begotten here, we talked about it before, it speaks of the source of the son, where the son comes from. Not just his beginning. He doesn’t have a beginning. The son is eternal. But in order to truly be a son, you have to have a father. And to truly be a father, you have to have a son. So to say that he is the son means that he is begotten from the father. He didn’t have a beginning, but he is sent from the father. He comes from God, the father. And that’s what that word means. He is from the father.

It was an indescribable gift from the father to send his only son. The son that he declared in Matthew 3:17, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. The son whom he loves and has given all things into his hand in John 3.35. The son he highly exalted and bestowed on him the name that is above every name in Philippians 2.9. The son that he enjoyed intimate fellowship from before the foundation of the world. in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He sent that Son to die as a sacrifice on behalf of sinful men. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. And this was all according to His perfect plan of salvation. He planned this before time began. We see this explained for us in 1 Peter chapter 1.

If you want to turn over there quickly, 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 18 through 20, Peter’s explaining to these exiles how it is they were saved. And this is their encouragement and their assurance that they are, even though they’re facing persecution, you are truly one of God’s people. In 1 Peter 18, it begins this way, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your futile conduct inherited from your forefathers. You can’t lose it like you can lose an idol. Like an idol can crumble and rust and fall away. You can’t lose it because you weren’t redeemed that way. not redeemed with corruptible things, but with precious blood, as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Jesus Christ. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but He appeared in these last times for the sake of you. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. This was the plan all along.

This plan was made before the foundation of the world, before you were even born, before anyone was even born, before Adam was created, before Adam even sinned. God had determined to send his son into the world to die for sinful men. This was the plan. In Romans chapter eight, after seeing that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, a couple verses later in verse three, God by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. That is how God loved the world. The father sent his son to accomplish the plan of salvation. So the son coming to the earth to be born of a virgin, to be God with us, it’s all a gift from the Father. And it was all according to his perfect plan.

So the second aspect of the gospel in John 3:16 is the plan of God. This was the plan. So we have the pleasure of God in sending His Son, the plan of God in sending His Son, and now we see, thirdly, the purpose. Why? Why did He do it? The purpose of God in the gospel, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is what is called a purpose clause. It shows us the purpose. Why? The word that there explains why. He didn’t just give his son for no reason. He didn’t just give his son to show what a good gift giver he is.

The gift had a purpose. He gave his son so that, so that what? so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. He sent his son so that he could have a people, because if he didn’t send his son, there would be nobody that believed in him, and all would perish. He was given so that believers could live. Now this is the part of the verse that I mentioned earlier that is often weaponized against the doctrine of election that we find throughout scripture. Ephesians 1, Romans 9, all the places where we see that God has chosen for himself a people.

And some will say, but it says, whosoever. At least the King James says whosoever. Most of your rivals probably say whoever. So that whoever believes. So therefore, Christ died for everybody and it’s up to us to make the decision to come to faith and then we get eternal life. And I agree, it does say whoever. It does say whoever, but that is not all it says. It says whoever believes in him. And in Greek, that word, or those words, whoever believes, is actually one word. It’s a participle, which is a verb that acts like a noun. So you could say, the believing ones. The believing ones in him. The ones believing in him. And the word all is there too.

So all the ones who are believing in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Or to make it smoother, Believers. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that believers, all believers, should not perish but have eternal life. All the ones believing in him shall not perish. So who was Jesus sent for? Believers. Who did Jesus die for? Believers. And who are believers? Well, Acts 13:48 says, as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. The ones who were appointed. We also call that the elect.

So John 3:16 does not disprove a biblical doctrine of election. It actually supports and proves it. Because he was sent for the ones who believe. He gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him. He gave his son as a gift for believers, for his people. The gift had a motive. We saw that is the love of God. The gift had a design. That’s the plan of God. And now we see the gift has a goal, the purpose of God to save believers. Whoever believes in Him shall not perish. They shall not perish. If you believe, you will never perish. When the Bible uses a word like perish, it’s talking about eternal judgment, the eternal punishment of God in hell, where believers will suffer under the wrath of God for eternity for their own sin.

Judgment is implied in John 3:16. Judgment is implied. Because if there are those who shall not perish, there are also those who will perish. The judgment upon believers for their sin against God is in John 3:16. And I doubt many people who use that verse as a slogan or a bumper sticker or whatever even understand that there’s judgment in this verse. Christ was given as a gift to believers. The gift was his substitutionary death on the cross. His dying where you should have died. His hanging on the cross where you should have hung.

But now, if you are believing in him, if you are one of those ones who believe, you’ll never perish. Salvation can never be lost. It can never be lost because God was planning to save you from the beginning of time. It was all part of his plan. True believers will be preserved for eternity. And the verse closes with, but have eternal life. Have eternal life. If you believe, You have eternal life. We already have it. Eternal life has already begun when you believe. And since that life is eternal, you can’t perish. It is not possible.

This is John’s thrust throughout a lot of the gospel, explaining what eternal life and eternal judgment is. A few verses later here in John 3, verse 36, he’s explaining again what Jesus is talking about here. He says, he who believes in the Son has eternal life. You have it. But he who does not obey the Son will not see life. But the wrath of God abides, remains on him. John 5:24, Jesus speaking again, truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. If you believe You have it. You have eternal life. It’s not something that you have to get down the road or something that you have to earn later on in your Christian walk. It’s you have it. If you believe, you’re in. You have eternal life. And in John 6, Jesus is explaining God’s role in saving people for himself. The sovereignty of God in salvation.

In John 6, verses 37 through 40, he says, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will never cast out. They will never perish. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Now this is the will of Him who sent me, that all that He has given to me, all of the believing in Him ones, all the ones who believe, I will lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise it up on the last day. He will raise you up on the last day.

That’s the reason for it all. That’s the purpose of God in the gift of his son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him, so that the ones that place their faith in Christ, the ones who believe in him shall not perish, but they have eternal life. In this one verse, we see the whole gospel. We see the pleasure of God revealed in his love for the world. And we see the plan of God in sending his son as a gift for believers. This was so that believers could not perish the purpose of God, but they will have eternal life.

If you are not a believer yet you have all that you need to come to Christ right in this verse. This verse has everything you need to know. That God loved unworthy sinners like you. That he didn’t owe it to you. You couldn’t earn it. There’s nothing that you’ve done that made you lovable. But God loved you. And he sent his son. And because he loved believers, he sent his son as the substitutionary sacrifice for them to hang and die and be buried in their place. But he was lifted up and he will lift us up on the last day. He will raise us up if you believe in him. And trust him as the substitute for you on that cross. If you believe, you’ll be saved and you will never perish. And when you believe, you have eternal life. And if you are one of the believers that this verse talks about, sometimes we can take John 3:16 for granted because it’s everywhere. Sometimes we glaze over when we see it. Don’t do that. This is an incredible gift. An indescribable gift for believers. He came for you. He was sent for you. You have eternal life because He was sent. What a gift. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. That’s John 3:16.

Let’s stand and close in a word of prayer this morning. Our God, we thank you, but we couldn’t thank you enough for the indescribable gift that you’ve given us in sending your Son, your only begotten Son, to live a life of perfect righteousness, and then to die, to die for our sin, to be made sin for us, even though he knew no sin. But then in his death and burial and resurrection, he defeated sin and he defeated death. And he consecrated for you, a people, all the ones that you gave to him. And we thank you that he will never lose any of them, that our salvation is secure because you planned it, because you determined it. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for your indescribable gift and we pray all of this in Jesus precious name. Amen.