Reverend Ray Osborne, Senior Minister
Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

In our text this morning we read about love. We read about a love that is not manipulative or coercive for in this morning’s text we read about the pure, unadulterated love of Almighty God!

My system of sermon preparation is not what I would call a perfect paradigm for young men and women who feel called to the proclamation of the Gospel. I usually look at the lectionary months in advance to at least get a “feel” for the upcoming Scripture passages. I then begin to pray and ask God to reveal some sort of “heavenly wisdom,” diametrically opposed to my wisdom, which is very limited and very human. Then I spend many days reading and re-reading the Scripture constantly keeping my eyes open for good illustrations that might help bring it to a present day application. Then I get on the computer and research it again by reading what other sermonizers have written about it. THEN when all is done I lock myself in my office and with the exception of eating, which I find to be very important to keeping my mind alert, I do not come out until it is written and posted on the World Wide Web.

I say all of that to say this; when I read the Scripture passage and realized what the governing theological theme for the passage was the love of God I became terrified! Even though I try each and every week in some form or another to tell of the love of God, I suddenly realized that there are no adequate words, phrases, or illustrations to convey that love to you. The truth is that the love of God is so tremendous, so wonderful, so out of this world that I’m not certain we as human beings will ever fully understand it until the end of the ages.

Having studied both Hebrew and Greek I soon learned that most of the problems I had understanding the biblical languages stemmed from my understanding of English which is known as one of the most difficult languages in the world to master. Perhaps one of the reasons we don’t understand “love” is because of the abusive ways we have used the word and the ways we have twisted and contaminated its meaning.

The other night Stephanie was cookie old-fashioned peanut butter cookies. While those cookies were baking the house began to fill with a wonderful, mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked peanut butter cookies. When I thought no one was looking I walked over to the rack those cookies were cooling on and scoped out the best one of the batch. I slowly eased it off the rack and slowly and methodically eased it to my mouth when BOOM! It bent, broke, and fell to the floor where our dog Madison sucked it up like a Kirby vacuum! Well I may have only had a little teeny, tiny taste, but it was certainly enough to know that I wanted more! Likewise, while we may never fully comprehend the love of God in its fullness and completeness in this lifetime, if we carefully exegete our text this morning, meaning to carefully savor every drop of meaning, we will experience enough of the love of God to realize that His love is something we will want more of and that we cannot live without.

While we can divide this text into many sections and subsections, I want to divide it into two separate parts. Notice with me first of all this morning that the text says,

“And just 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. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:14-18 NRSV)

Not long ago I shared with you this tremendous story of Moses in a sermon I called “Prayer Changes Things.” I told you of how the people of God had been complaining about Moses and God’s provisions. God became angry and sent serpents which we believe to have been scorpions that bit the people and they actually died from those bites. The people went to Moses and begged him to go to God on their behalf and convince him to get rid of the serpents. Moses did as the people asked and God heard his prayer and answered it. Let me read God’s instructions to Moses for you this morning:

Numbers 21:8-9 8: “And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live. So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.”

One of the first things that we see about the love of God this morning is that it is salvific in nature – it is a saving love. We need not go into the whole account of the fall of man recorded in Genesis this morning but rather I think we all can agree that in the beginning God had a perfect plan and the world was a perfect place. However, God left man in charge of things and whenever humans are left in charge of things, being human things are subject to go bad and they did. Here was God’s instructions to man:

Genesis 2:16-17: “And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

We all know what happened but for the sake of argument I will read it to you:

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate."

Ladies isn’t that just like us men? Blame the woman! But I didn’t read about a long argument on the man’s part to refuse the fruit did you?

Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate."

The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

And to the man he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;”

Well now you know why men blame women, why it hurts to have a baby, why snakes crawl on their belly, and how sin entered the world.

We also need to understand that since God is the definition of all that is holy, all that is pure, all that is right; God cannot and will not tolerate sin. Wherever there is sin there must be a penalty of consequence for that sin. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I realize that I am reading a lot of Scripture to you this morning but I truly believe we don’t understand these things because we feel we are too busy or whatever we do not take the time to read the Word of God. Hear the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.

But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned--sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law.

Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man's trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.

And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man's trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

For just as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

You see this is the first part of our text this morning. God loves you and I so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die, to pay the penalty of sin, to experience the consequence of death, that you and I, through and by His grace, might be reconciled to Him. 2 Peter 3: 9 says, “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

John 3:16-17 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

See God’s love is so great that willingly gave His Son to die in our place. As a parent that’s the kind of love I can’t even begin to understand – can you?

God is looking you in your heart, your spiritual eyes this morning and very tenderly, compassionately says, “I love you.”

The second part of our text this morning says, “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." (John 3:19-21 NRSV)

Basically John is telling you and I that we are known by our fruit. God knows wither or not we are His children by the things that we do. And I suppose the scary thing is that other people know wither or not we are children of God by the things we do. I even get a bit frightened when I say those words. My son accepted Jesus into his heart following one of the Extreme Faith concerts we had here. Since that time, over a year he has asked me to allow him to be baptized. I kept telling him “Son when your behavior shows me that you truly have made this decision I will let you be baptized.” It was during the preparation of this message that I have become convicted about that. He’s six years old! He is a typical little boy! He will always get into mischief especially if he’s like his daddy! And besides is my life all it’s suppose to be? Am I perfect? Will I ever be perfect? No. So this Easter Sunday we will have a Baptism and my son will come this morning presenting himself as a candidate for baptism. He tells me over and over with exact detail of when and how he asked Jesus in his heart and ladies and gentlemen I cannot be his judge over his salvation.

There may be someone here this morning who has not experienced the love of God through salvation. Hear again what the Word of God says,

Rom 10:9-10: “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.”

Acts 2:21 says, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (NRSV)

With out-stretched, nails-scarred hands Jesus says to you this morning: “I love you! I died for you! I have risen for you! Won’t you come and accept my love this morning?”

You may feel inhibited this morning to come down this isle. You may feel the tugging and urging of the Holy Spirit of God this morning and you truly want to accept Jesus, you want to give him your life but you just can’t make yourself get out of that pew and come down here this morning. A lot of people have given their heart and lives to Jesus right in the pew but at some point you have to make it public just like my son Seth will this morning. He’ll be here. I’ll be here. But most important of all Jesus is here – won’t you come and join us?

Amen.

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