Look at a whole verse. John 3, verse 16. You can turn to it if you need to. If you don't need to, you can just listen to it. We're continuing on in our series, A Glimpse of Glory, in which we're looking at the attributes of God. We've looked at God's self-existence and His holiness, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His goodness and generosity. And this morning we want to consider the love of God. John 3.16, we read, For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our great God and loving Heavenly Father, as we meditate upon Your love for sinners, and the cost of such extravagant love, we ask that it would not only penetrate our minds, but we pray that the love of God would flood our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us. And we ask these things confidently in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. You may be seated. It would be difficult to imagine a more daunting assignment than the one given to us by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5.1, where he says, be imitators of God. There's your assignment. Go out this week. Imitate God. In the context, that specifically means that we Christians are called to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us, and we are to walk in love as Christ loved us. So specifically, that means, at the very least, that we are to forgive like God forgives, and we are to love like God loves. And if you aren't staggered by that, then you don't understand what's being asked of us here. We are called to forgive. Forgive everybody. Forgive every wrong. And there are no caveats, there are no exceptions. We are to forgive everybody, including those who have murdered our husband. We are to forgive those who have terribly violated us in our childhood. We are to forgive fill-in-the-blank anybody and everybody for any and every wrong. In addition to that, we are called to love as God loves. And let's remember what Jesus reminded us. This means that we are even to love our enemies. We are to love terrorists. We are to love those who have beheaded our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Middle East. We're not to hate them. We are to love them. It's a high calling indeed, is it not? So let me ask, do you forgive and love like that? Do you find it easy to forgive and love like that? Or like me, do you find it very challenging to forgive and love like that. You find it as challenging as it would be to climb Mount Everest in a wheelchair. You hear that command of God and think, how could I ever possibly love and forgive like God does? How are we even going to begin to imitate such perfect love and forgiveness? Well, one example, or one answer I should say, is given by the Apostle Paul in the second half of that verse where he says, be imitators of God as beloved children. It almost seems like a throwaway line. Be imitators of God as beloved children. And then he goes on, but it is certainly not a throwaway line. Paul is saying, as dearly loved children of God who have experienced the loving embrace of their heavenly Father, you are empowered to love others with the love that you yourself have received. As 1 John 4, 19 says, we love because He, God, first loved us. That's a very important verse. We love because God first loved us. And I love the explanation given by John Stott here. He says, all of our love is a response to and a reflection of God's love for us. That's not an exaggeration. All of our love is a response to and a reflection of God's love for us, which means it is not a small matter to feel like a dearly loved children of God. It is not a trivial thing to say, I'm a loved child of God. God loves me. It's not a small matter to understand that, to know that, and experience that kind of love. So in order to help you sense God's love for you, Personally, I want us to reflect on three expressions of God's love that we find in John 3.16. And the emphasis in John 3.16 really is on the love of God. If I could have you put your Greek glasses on just for a minute. This is how John 3.16 reads in the original Greek language. For, so loved God the world that He gave. And the order is, so loved. That comes first. It's not like English. Quick grammar lesson. It's not like English where you have to have the subject first, followed by the verb, and then the direct object. No, in Greek you can have them all mixed up, which means sometimes it's like putting a puzzle together. But if you want to emphasize something in the Greek, you put it first, right at the beginning of the sentence. And that's what John does. He says, So loved God the world. He's putting so loved first so that we understand what's being emphasized here is love. And don't overlook that little word so. Okay? Most of us have memorized John 3.16, so it just flows freely from our lips, but sometimes we have to slow down for so, if I can say it that way, so loved God the world that He gave. In other words, so intensely and massively did God love the world that He gave His one and only Son. So I just want to remind you, this verse really is emphasizing God's love. And we see three expressions of this love. The first expression is found in its undeserving objects. The first expression is found in God's love towards undeserving objects. Who does God love? For God so loved the world. Okay, now we have to pause here for a moment. The Greek word is kosmos. You're familiar with that. It means world, humanity, everybody. Here's what you need to understand. In the Gospel of John, as well as his epistles, the world hates God, rejects God, and rebels against God. This word, kosmos, is used 186 times in the New Testament, and it's always used with a negative connotation. Always. The world hates God. I know this is a crass illustration, but maybe it'll get the point across. One Sunday morning I come and I do a little work to get ready and then I go home and I shower so I can get cleaned up and be presentable to you. And many of you know this corner right here. So I drive out here. I live five minutes down the road here and you know this corner is very sharp. So one Sunday morning as I'm driving around the corner, another car comes into my lane and that didn't really surprise me because it's a sharp corner and that happens all the time. It's not a big deal. Sometimes I just kinda move over gently. Well, this morning, as I'm driving in my lane, and the other car coming towards me is in my lane, he comes up to me and he gives me the finger! You're driving in my lane! And I'd like to say, I just said, Lord bless you in a prayer, but I've got to admit, it really got under my collar a little bit. A little upset by that as I'm going home, getting ready for worship. But you know what? This is how the world treats God. This is how the world treats God. God isn't doing anything wrong. We're the sinners. We're the rebels. And we give God the finger. We do. We despise God. We hate God. We mock God. And God's response is one of love. Isn't that amazing? God loves us. Romans 5.8 says, but God demonstrates His love for us. And I love that. He demonstrates His love. He doesn't just say, I love you. He demonstrates it. Because you know, some cynic would say, oh yeah, you love us? Prove it! God says, okay, I'll prove it. God demonstrates His love for us. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. While we were sinners, rebels, giving God the finger, He loved us and sent Christ to die for us. The author Jerry Bridges says at one time he was praying, that he would have a greater understanding of God's love. And he said, God answered his prayer by showing him more of his sin. Understand how that works? See, when we understand our sin, then we have a greater appreciation of God's love for us. You know, it's interesting that in the church we're emphasizing sin less and less, and we're emphasizing the love of God more and more, but we need to see that they go together. If you want to understand the love of God, you have to understand sin. And it's tragic that even in the church, we're not talking about sin because it's offensive. And we want people to understand the love of God. I want you to know this morning, my prayer is that you would understand the love of God, that you would experience it, that you would feel it, that you would know you are loved of God. And to help you with that, I'm wanting you to see that you're a wretched sinner. See, when you see that you're a wretched sinner when you've rebelled against God, but He loves you anyways, then you don't just say, well, of course God loves me, I'm kind of a lovable guy. Why wouldn't God love me? But when you see, I'm a wretched sinner, I've despised God, I'm not His friend, I'm His enemy, and yet, in spite of all that, He loves me? Then you understand this, this is love. Think of a man who had two debtors. One owed him $1,000. Another one owed him $100,000, and he forgives the debt of both. Which one will love him more? And of course, this is the takeoff of a parable that Jesus gave, and the people responded, well, I suppose the one who owed him more, and Jesus said, you have answered correctly, he who is forgiven much loves much. And I want you to see your sin so that you can see that you are forgiven much, you are loved much, and then in return, you will love much when you see that God will love a sinner even such as you. So to appreciate God's love, we need to see how undeserving we are. Second, we need to see that God's love is seen by its enormous cost. What did it cost God to love the world? Ten dollars? Inconvenience of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon? What did it cost God to love the world? What do we read in John 3.16? For God so loved the world that He gave. Just stop right there for a moment. To be a lover is to be a giver. If you love someone, you give. Parents who love their children enjoy giving gifts to their children. It's a delight to give them gifts. Christmas, birthday, It's an expression of their love. If you love someone, you're willing to give up your time, spend time with them. If you love someone, you're willing to help them when they need help with maybe a project that they're working on. When you love someone, you're willing to give. You're willing to sacrifice. And you're happy to do so because it's a response of love. You know what? The greater the love, the greater the giving, right? If you really, really love someone, You're willing to just give and give and give. What did God give? For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son. Let me ask you, what more could God have given? He gave His Son. What more could God have given? R.C. Sproul tells the story, and I don't know if I got all the details, correct, but he was at a university, and one of the professors didn't believe in his Christianity, and this professor said, I can't believe that you're saying there is only one way to God. How could you be so narrow as a Christian to say that there is only one way to God? And R.C.' 's comment was, wait a second. Let's think about this for a moment. The world has rebelled against God. It's full of sinners. But God, in His love for sinners, sent His one and only Son down from heaven to earth to take on flesh and blood so that He could suffer and be mocked and abused, spit upon, so that finally He could die upon a cross in our place, so that He could be punished for our sin, so that we could be forgiven, so that if anyone would turn to Him, put their faith in, they could be forgiven and have everlasting life? And what you're saying by, you can't believe that there's only one way to heaven, what you're saying is, God hasn't done enough. You're saying, God hasn't done enough. We shouldn't be amazed that there's only one way to heaven. We should be amazed that there is any way to heaven. That's what should amaze us, that there actually is a road to heaven. What more could God do to demonstrate His love? Is this not enough? If you think about it, God sent His Son to die for us. It almost seems as if He loves us more than His own Son. Now, He doesn't, but He does love us just as much as He loves His own Son. And He demonstrated that by sending Christ. So we see His love for us and loving the undeserving, His enormous cost in sending Christ. And then finally, third, we see the expression of God's love and its extreme benefits. And the benefits of God's love are extreme, are they not? What do we read in John 3.16? For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life or eternal life. That's how you benefit. Let me go back to another illustration if I could with the debt just to help to make the point. Some of you have heard this before, but let's say you go on vacation and a friend of yours is watching your house while you're on vacation, and you come back from your vacation, and your friend says, I watched your house while you were gone, and I got the mail, and I noticed that there was a bill in the mail, and I thought I would take care of the bill for you. How do you respond to that? Do you say thank you, or do you bow down and kiss his feet? Well, it depends on which bill he paid, right? If it was postage due and it was less than 50 cents, you say thank you and you're on your way. But what if, we'll go back to the $100,000 bill, what if you owed the IRS back taxes and they added up to $100,000 and you weren't anywhere close to paying off that debt? And as a matter of fact, you knew that you couldn't pay the debt and you knew that the government was coming after you. And you knew if you didn't pay the debt, they were going to throw you in jail. You knew that was coming, but your friend paid the debt, that enormous debt. And boy, did you, did you benefit from the debt? Now here's what we need to realize. God paid the debt that we couldn't pay and he didn't just keep us out of jail. He kept us. from perishing. And can I give you the blunt word for not perishing? God kept us out of hell. I said earlier we don't like to talk about sin. There's one other thing that we don't want to talk about even because we don't want to talk about sin, and that's hell. We don't want to talk about hell. But you know what? I want to talk about hell. Why do I want to talk about hell? Because I want you to understand God's love for you. And when we understand what God has rescued us from, not just a prison term, but from hell, when we understand what God has rescued us from and how we have benefited from His love, then we can see we really are loved. And that's the negative side. The negative side is not perish. The positive side is have eternal life. Eternal life. We will spend eternity with God in heaven forever. Sorrow will be no more. He will wipe away all our tears. That's what is waiting for us because of God's love for us in Christ. And when that penetrates our hearts, when we understand that kind of love, we will live different lives. We really will. That will Reform your life. Back in October of 2006, many of you heard this tragic story. Charles Robert walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse. He lined up ten little girls, and one by one, he shot them. And as I remember the story, five died and five were wounded. The report said that in the midst of their grief that devastated this Amish community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the Amish community didn't blame. They didn't point fingers. They didn't hold a press conference with attorneys at their side. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion to the killer's family. If you heard the stories, you heard that. Everybody was just stunned, the press, the media. They were stunned at the gracious, forgiving, loving response of this Amish community. They were just taken aback that they would respond to this tragedy in this way. The afternoon of the shooting, think about this. The afternoon of the shooting, an Amish grandfather of one of the girls who was killed express forgiveness towards the killer. That afternoon, immediate response was forgiveness. It didn't even take days for him to process and work through it. He forgave. That afternoon, he forgave the killer, Charles Robert. That same day, again, the same day, Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their time of sorrow and pain. because they knew what the wife was feeling and the children was feeling and what they were feeling over the embarrassment of what the husband and the father had done. They were comforting them the same day. One report said that later that week the Roberts family was invited to the funeral of one of the Amish girls who had been killed and Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Roberts' funeral. He reports that it's ironic that the killer was tormented for nine years by the premature death of his young daughter. He never forgave God for her death. Yet, after he cold-bloodedly shot 10 innocent Amish schoolgirls, the Amish almost immediately forgave him and showed compassion towards his family. In a world of war and in a society that often points fingers and blames at others, this reaction was unheard of. Many reporters and interested followers of the story ask, how could they forgive such a terrible, unprovoked act of violence against these innocent lives? The report went on to say, the Amish culture closely follows the teachings of Jesus, who taught His followers to forgive one another. But you know what? It goes deeper than that. Yes, the Amish community were taught that they need to forgive one another. But what I think people didn't understand is that in the Amish community, among these people, they talk about sin. They go to church and they say, you're sinners. And they take out time during the service and they say, we're going to confess our sins because every single one of us has sinned against God and thought, word and deed this last week. Let's ask God to forgive us because we are sinners. Not just those people out there. We, right here in the church, are sinners. Let's ask God to forgive us. And in this Amish community, they talk about hell. They say, if we don't ask for forgiveness, if we don't put our faith in Jesus Christ, we're going to hell, which is a place of eternal torment. They talk about hell in the Amish community. And because they talk about hell in the Amish community, they know what they have been rescued from. They know what they have been delivered from. And because they understand their sin, because they understand how they benefited from the love of God, because they understand what it costs God to forgive them, they not only have teaching you need to forgive, but they have experienced that in the depth of their beings so that it is a part of them. So that when tragedy comes, they forgive and they love with the forgiveness and love that they have received. which tells us how deeply embedded it is in them, which tells us they have, before this tragedy, they put on the Lord Jesus Christ. They put on love and compassion, kindness, tenderness, and forgiveness, and they were able to respond with what they were wearing that day because of what they received. Have you experienced God's love? Do you know God loves you? What do we call to do? For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever, you're a whosoever, would believe in Him, would not perish but have everlasting life. That's the call. God says, I love you like this. What do we need to do to be saved? On one occasion, people asked Jesus, tell us to do, what is the work of God? The work of God is to believe in Jesus Christ. Do you believe that you are a sinner? Do you believe that you are a hell-bound sinner? Do you believe that God sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for your sin? Have you looked to Him in faith? That's all He's asking you to do. And if you look to Him, You will not perish. You will have everlasting life. And when that gets into the depths of your heart, it will transform you. It will melt away the bitterness, the resentfulness, and the anger. And it will enable you, empower you to forgive even the most terrible of all offenses. It will enable you to love even your enemies. This is a high calling indeed, and we can't do it in our own strength. But we can do it as we experience the love of God for us in Jesus Christ. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank You for Your great love for us. We thank You that You demonstrated Your love for us in sending Jesus to die for sinners. Father, if we have experienced this love, I pray that we would just be reminded this morning of how great it is that we would have a greater appreciation for this love. Father, if there are any here this morning who have not experienced this love, Father, I pray that even now they would turn to Jesus Christ. I pray that through the Holy Spirit, You would flood their hearts with Your love for them. Oh, Father, we thank You for Your love. May You continue to transform our hearts so that we love because You have first loved us. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.