I bid you a good morning and invite you to turn with me in your copy of God's Word. First of all, to Genesis chapter 22. Genesis chapter 22. If you're using one of our church Bibles, you'll find this reading at page 16. Page 16 in the church Bible. We're going to read the first 18 verses of Genesis 22 and then turn over to where our text is, which is in John chapter 3. Genesis chapter 22 verse one. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. He said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here. with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you." And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. He took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father. And he said, here I am, my son. He said, behold, the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went, both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there, laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, And he said, here am I. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide. As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring spring shall possess the gates of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. Now, let's turn over to John, chapter three. John, chapter three. Again, this reading is at eight hundred and eighty seven, eight, eight, seven in the church Bible. And again, we read 18 verses. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man. And 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 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 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. And notice verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Let's pray together. Our gracious Lord. We marvel at the greatness of your love. And how we thank you that at this time of the year, we have this special opportunity to together to to to reflect upon it, to meditate upon it, to see the glories of your love as it is displayed in the coming of Christ into the world. Lord, as we. As we meditate this morning, we pray that you will find love in our hearts, that the response of our hearts to your love will be more love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee. So help us now, we pray, by your spirit and by your word, because this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You're doing it wrong. Ever heard that? You're doing it wrong. I've heard it a few times. I'm sure you have too. Crunches, right? I'd been doing them one way for a number of years, actually a couple of decades. And then I went to a personal trainer a couple of years ago and he said, you're doing it wrong. I'll not demonstrate for you right here the way I was doing it and the way that I'm doing it now, but it still hurts. You do those things. It still hurts down here. It's not any easier than ever it was before. And then the other one, right? that fabulous Italian dessert that you get, right, just before you're in an Italian restaurant. And I used to pronounce it bruschetta. until an Italian waitress came to me and she said, it's not bruschetta, it's bruschetta. And you have to do this with your hand, right? You go bruschetta, right? That's how you pronounce it, right? And then there's a banana, right? I had to look this one up. I went to those websites for this. You're doing it wrong. You Google it, you're doing it wrong. The first one that I saw was a banana, right? You don't peel it from the stem. You nip the bottom of it right there and then you peel it all down. I've been practicing. I'm not sure it works yet, but it was kind of helpful. But you're doing it wrong. Is it possible? Is it conceivable? We come to the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3, 16. Is it possible that you're reading it the wrong way? Is that possible? Perhaps. Well, this is the season of receiving gifts and giving gifts. And and we do that, we do that in light of the fact that our God gives. And not, you know, Christians historically have not done this kind of consumerist fest, materialist festival that is turned into just a simple time of simple gift giving and thinking about others and doing things for other people who, you know, are disadvantaged. That's historically what Christmas has been for Christians. And it's because of words like this. that we're going to think about this morning. We come to a verse about the greatest gift giver who gives the greatest gift. But I want to ask this question, ask it a couple of ways. But this question is this. What is it that makes the love of God so great? What is it that makes his love so great? How do you measure the love of God? What do you set it in the context so it shines out and you see it and you go, wow. And you start dancing and you start singing and you start leaping. What is it that makes the love of God so great that turns your world around, right? Turns it not upside down, but the right way up. Well, I want us to think about three things as we look at this beautiful verse together. God's love is so great because of who receives it. The world. God's love is so great because of what is given the one and only son. God's love is so great because of what it guarantees eternal life. So these three things, God's love is great because of its recipients, because of its gift, the gift of love, and because of its guarantee. So first of all, God's love is so great because it's given to the world. That's the first thing. The world, that word, when you read it in that text, for God so loved the world. What do you think about when you see that word, world? Do you think, right, the physical world, it's so massive, right? The continents, and the mountains, and the valleys, and the deserts, and the oceans, it's so massive, it takes a really big world to love all that. Or maybe you say, no, no, no, it can't be that. Maybe it's so many people in it. 7.6 billion people in the world presently. You add to that all the ones that have already lived. Surely it takes a big, big love to love all them. That's what it means, surely. Well. That isn't what is on John's mind as he says this, right, that God so loved the world. He's not comparing us to the world. Right, you and I would say the world and all its people, it is massive compared to me. But he's saying compared to God, in God's eyes, the world. You see, we're running into a problem there because the world and all its people in it is just a wee tiny thing to God. It's like this, children, right? Children, if we said we picked the two strongest people in this room right now, and we said to them, right? One of you stand up here and the other you stand up here, right? And I've got two sesame seeds, right? From a McDonald's hamburger. And we said, we're gonna test your strength right now. Hold these two sesame seeds, please. You would say, that's a joke. We've got the strongest men and the strongest people in this room to do that. Well, that's exactly what the world is and all the people in it. To God, it's like a speck of dust on the eyelash of an ant to God. That's all it is. You see, it's nothing for him. That's not the measure of the greatness of his love. So what is the greatness of his love? Well, John uses the word world often in John's gospel. And when he uses it, not always, but often when he uses the word world, the world is the place that is hostile to God. It has contempt for God. It has turned its back on God. It's angry with God. The world, we've already read it in our confession of faith this morning when we read from John 1. But let me remind you, verse 10 of chapter 1 says this. He was in the world, the world that He had made. He was in that world and the world was made through Him, yet, The world did not know him. That's not a compliment. The world did not know the one who had made it, didn't recognize the one who had made it. It goes on, this chapter here, John 3, 19, says this, the next verse, we would have read if we'd have kept going. And this is the judgment. Light has come into the world. But the people in it love the darkness rather than the light, because their words, their works were evil. And in chapter 7, verse 7, Jesus says, the world hates me. And then he tells us why. Why does the world hate you, Jesus? Because he says, I testify about it, that its works are evil. And then John 16 verse 33, he tells his disciples that in this world you'll have tribulation. Why? Because the world is the way it is towards me. And then in chapter 17, verse 14, he talks about the enmity that the world has for Jesus and those that are with Him. So there's this word world. It's associated with antagonism, with contempt, with hostility towards God. So in other words, John is saying to us, there's nothing in this world that would cause God to love the world. Just the opposite. There's everything in the world that would repel His love. There is no, right? There's no redeeming virtue. No, no, no, no something beautiful there. I've got to act to save that. So when you read the word world in John 3, 16, it isn't because of its massive size. Oh, it's his massive sin. That's what John has in mind. So it's not this, not this. The world is so big, it takes a great love to love it, to love all of it. Rather, it's the world so bad that it takes a great love to embrace it at all. That's what John's saying. God's love is so great because the recipients of his love, It's the world, it's you and me. And you see the amazing thing here is this, right? It's easy to love lovely things. It's easy to love something beautiful and to cherish that. But the real test of love is to love when it's hard to love. Isn't it? In life, it's like that, right? You have a hard time with somebody, somebody that's a relative. It's hard to embrace them, to love them and to keep on doing it. That's the test of I love you. To be able to do that, and that's exactly what Paul says in Romans 5, right? For a good cause, for a good person. Somebody might be willing even to die, to lay down the ultimate sacrifice, to do it because this country's values are precious, right? To go off to some foreign country and lay down a life for that, to do it for them. It's a worthy act to do that. But God's love is at a different category altogether. God's love climbs over countless rebellious acts. God's love, you know, it climbs over cosmic hatred. God's love climbs over provocations from creatures like you and me. He reaches out to what Paul calls, right? He calls them the ungodly, calls them sinners, calls them the enemies. And he loves us. He loves us. So the first thing is this, the greatness of God's love is seen in what he gives to those who deserve the opposite. That's the first thing. The second reason is this, God's love is so great because he has given us his son. Now notice this, giving is at the very heart of the gospel. And giving is at the very heart of God's love. Do you see this, right? The heart of love is to give. Paul, for instance, will say, Christ loved me. So what did he do? He gave himself for me. And that's exactly what we're seeing here. That God's love is an active love. It isn't just words, I love you. It acts. It creates love. It demonstrates. It gives. And that's the importance of the little word, right? We can overlook it. For God so loved. Do you know what that word means? You could translate it in this way. For God in this way loved the world. He gave his one and only son. I could put it in different ways, right? We could bump into one another and I could ask you, how did you get here? And you could say, well, I wanted some fresh air, so I walked. And you're saying, you know, I got here in this particular way, or I don't like what you stand for, so I'm going to vote against you, right? I'm going to show my displeasure in what you stand for in this way. I'm going to demonstrate it. I'm going to show it. And God demonstrates the greatness of his love in giving his only son. In this way, his love is proven to us. God says, I love you. And I'll show you, I'll demonstrate it. Here's my heart. Here's the heart of my heart. Here's my one and only son. I want to bring that down to us because think about that. Remember Jacob? When Jacob thought that his son Joseph was dead, how did he respond? How did he react when he heard that Joseph was what was dead? My life is over. He came apart, right? He'd been told a lie. His son Joseph wasn't in fact dead, but he took it as truth. And what did he say, right? He had a huge sorrow. My Joseph is dead. One of the writers, John Flavell says this, right? A child is a piece of the parent wrapped in another skin. How does it affect us when our children suffer or are hurting? When we see them struggling, right? It hurts us. It breaks us. But it's right, he says, right? But our children are like strangers compared strangers to us compared to the father's love for his son. And yet the father still gives his son. Yet the father still gives him knowing what giving him is going to mean. He gives His Son, He sends Him into this world as a baby, as a humble servant. What? To receive the contempt of the world? To receive its rejection, its hostility? For them not to listen to Him? For them to say to Him, hey, what you're doing, you're doing it by the devil. And then when he comes to a garden, he's on his face in the dirt, crying, crying, right? Lord, take this cup away from me. It's so hard what I'm doing here. Jesus asks for that and he gets no answer. And then it comes to the cross. And he's there on the cross bearing wrath, bearing punishment that it was ours. And the father hears his own heart saying to him, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you turned away from me? How the father knew that all that was coming every single day of it, every month, every year. He knew that all of that was coming. And yet he gives his own son in this way. I love you. Do you see that's what it's saying for God in this way, love the world. Knowing exactly what it would cost and knowing exactly what it would mean. Yet I give you my son. Do you see? Do you see the thing? I mean, you and I can respond. We could say, was it really, really necessary for somebody so good, so pure, so glorious? Was it really necessary yet to go through all that? Yes, that's what it took. That is what it took and it was necessary. Why? Because the world's so bad. That's why. But the Father's love, right, it goes back, right? When you go, what caused the sun to come? You go back to it all. What is the grand source of everything? It's the Father's love. So understand that. It's not just Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so. The Father loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so. That's so important because so often, right, the devil, the wicked one, maybe even our own hearts want to undermine that, that God's really not good. He's really not after our best. You know, that sword's going to come down on me any second now. The loved ones, this is telling you that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, his love is his love is is unbreakable, is glorious. When Paul, you say, what's the proof that God is for me? What's the proof that the father's for me? Paul immediately, he did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. John, what's the proof that the father really loves me? He gave his one and only son. That's why Genesis 22 is the perfect backdrop to this verse that we're looking at, right? What's the proof of love? Abraham comes so close to giving his son. And God says, now I know that you fear me. And now here, echoing that, God says, says to us, I love you, and so you can say you can say, Lord, now I know you love me. Because you did not withhold your son, your only son from me. I came across. I came across this as I was preparing and reading. It's an illustration of the darkest days of World War I, and there were some horrendous battles. 100,000 young men die in two days. horrendous battles that occurred in the First World War. And there's a little boy and his daddy walking in the early evening as twilight's coming in a village in England. And as they're walking along, the little boy notices there's stars in the windows, some of the windows, not every window, but as they're walking down the street, there's little stars in the window. And he asked his daddy, Daddy, why are the stars there? and his daddy responds to him, that comes from this terrible war laddie. It shows that these people have given a son, lost a son in the battle. And then they walk a little bit further along, the wee laddie and his daddy, and the little boy stops. And he's got his finger pointed up into the sky. Just there on the horizon, the evening star has come up over the horizon. He's pointing his finger and he says, look, daddy, look, God must have given a son too. And the writer says, that's it. In the terrible war against evil, God gave his son. That's the way evil's defeated. God paid the ultimate price. Because he loves you, so loves the world in this way he loves. The recipients of his love, that shows its greatness, who he gives it to, what he gives, who he gives. But lastly, God's love is great because of what it guarantees. Eternal life hangs on one thing, one little thing. Eternal life hangs on your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish. but have eternal life. Eternal life hangs on one thing, your relationship with Jesus. And that relationship is described by one word, believe, faith. God says, it's as if God is coming towards us and saying, right, there's the enmity exists between us, but I come with terms of peace. And here is the terms. The terms are called faith. No salvation without it. Faith. Must believe. in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you like, to make it easier, there's three levels, if you like. There's knowing the facts about Jesus, like you know the facts about where the president lives, and who he is, and so on and so forth. There's certain things that we need to know about Jesus, right? That he was born here, that he lives so-and-so. But you have to get beyond that. You have to not only say that that is so, but that they're true. That He was born in this way, that He died in this way, that He rose in this way. Right? It's not just saying those facts are there. Tick, tick, tick. But they're true facts. But then there's a third thing. You have to embrace that truth. You have to embrace that truth. You have to see that when right that that that that obedience that he rendered, he lived a perfect life. He did it for me. His perfection replaces my imperfection, that you rest in what he has. He has done, therefore, that he's the radiance of God's love for me, that his death, he wasn't dying for himself. He couldn't. He was so pure and good. So why was he there? paying the penalty down for what I had done. And that death for me is a sufficient death and his resurrection. He was rising from the dead. Why? To offer me life who am dead in trespasses and sins. You see, it's embracing that. Trusting it, resting in it. But here. Simple, mere faith. It enables us to escape perishing. Simple faith brings us to receive instead eternal life. We get not what we deserve. We get what we don't deserve. Laying hold of that promise of eternal life, you do it by resting in him. Faith. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. See, the promise is this, that those who believe in Him, they'll not perish, they'll not face condemnation, the next verse says, right? Romans 8, 1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Not one a little bit of condemnation. See, this is the great love of God. It's given to us, to the world. It gives His Son. But this love of God is an unconquerable love. It guarantees what it offers, right? It overcomes the world. It overcomes our sin. This love of the Father, it prevails. It will not fail. And it guarantees not only to save sons and daughters of God, It also guarantees to bring us safely home. It's so great. Nothing can impede it. Nothing can stand in its way. Not even death, not rulers and authorities in wicked places, not famine or danger, no sword. Absolutely nothing can stand in the way of God's love for sinners like you and me. Nothing can separate us from this love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. What do we say to all this? How do we respond? I came across this this week. It's Luther. Martin Luther, he says this. I hate myself. Because when I see Christ laid in the manger or in the lap of his mother here, the angel singing, my heart does not leap into flame. With what good reason should we all despise ourselves that we remain so cold when this word is spoken to us over which everyone should be dancing and leaping and burning with joy? Amen here and amen there. We act as though it were a frigid historical fact that we'd heard about. as if someone were merely relating that the Sultan has a crown of gold. I needed to hear that. Because, right, it's Christmas again. We bring out the old carols and we bring out the old sermons that we've heard year on year and year on year. And we can go out of here, right? We can go out of the building and we can hear this stuff and untouched and unmoved, go out of the building, right? Like we just heard in an interesting weather report. And we've forgotten about it even before we get out of the building. Maybe I'm talking about me. See, this is a kind of verse that when you hear it, people that are artisans, right? When you hear it, when it comes to not just your these things, but to these, to this place, the ears of our heart, right? This is the kind of verse, these are the kinds of words that make artisans, right? The project that I was working on, it's gone. I'm gonna be focusing on this now. What can I do to respond to such a gift? Or, you know, thinkers, people that use their brain as they're working or nurses or doctors or homemakers, right? How do I respond to a love like this? How do I respond? How do I live it out? A few things for us as we reflect on this. First. Know that because this is true, for God in this way loved the world. He gave his only son. Whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life because that is true. Notice, know the preciousness of souls to God. The value he places on them. The Lord didn't do that, didn't do this for fallen angels. He did it for fallen sons, for for fallen image bearers, right? Image bearers that had become anti-image bearers, right? They'd become, right? Little gods. I want to be like God, not you. In spite of that, God, God would not give such a gift for small things, for trivial things. He sends his son to restore his image in us. That's what he does. So how should that move us? How should that move us that God did that for you and me to restore his image in us so that he could see himself in us and say, yes, yes. How should that move us? It should move us to act like him. He sent the Son, He's going to send me with the Son in me. And I'm going to bear witness to anybody that the Lord sends in my little bailiwick, right? Neighbors, friends, I'm going to tell them. That little book we gave out, the playlist by Alistair Baye, the one I've just been reading this past week, right? I'm going to give that out to somebody, colleague at work, a neighbor. He was sent, I'm sent. But loved ones, there's also the children among us, right? Your own children. Their souls are precious as well. We shouldn't be indifferent about their welfare as children and their need to know this and to hear this. So. Do you take that interest in your children? Right. I mean, after after every Lord's Day, the sermon, right, there's the I cannot stand here and give application to every single person in this room. That would be very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable for me. It would probably be. So you've got to take this. Right. And you've got to begin to apply it to yourself and to your life. How am I going to respond to this? But dads. You have to do that for your kids as well. You have to take the meat of the sermon and to divide it up into little bites so that on the car, on the way home, or at the lunch table afterwards, you know, pastor talks about this, or John talks about this. What do you think about that? Did you understand what was being said? Talk it through. But don't do it on Sunday. Do it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and on. That our kids, Hear this, not just from pastor on Sunday, but from you. They don't only hear it from your words, they're seeing it, right? This sacrifice. Yes, it changes the world and it changes me too. Notice also, this great assurance that draws near from this verse. Because God gave his son, You can't expect that all other needed mercies to get you from where you are today to heaven will absolutely be given. If God has given you his nearest, his greatest, his all encompassing gift. And he did that when you're his enemy. He did that when you are alienated from him. It is not imaginable that he's going to deny you any mercy now that you are reconciled to him. Now you're his child. Thirdly, there's a warning here, isn't there? The greatest love is seen in God giving his son If that's true, then it follows that the greatest evil is to despise that gift, to reject that gift, or to sit on the fence about that gift, to say, no, you've got to, you've got to seek, right? You've got to find those facts, find those answers. Who is he? Why did he come? What does he mean to me? then to come to him with your heart in your hand to give to him. And then there's this last way. If the measure of love is what love gives. And in this way, God loves us by giving us his son. That we ought to love him with all that we have in return. to love him as his people, to give our lives and to spend it for his glory and for his sake. I want to end with some words from a favorite hymn of mine. Love of God, how strong and true, eternal and yet ever new. That's how the hymn begins. The third stanza says this. We read you best. Read what? We read the love of God. We read the love of God best in him who came to bear for us the cross of shame, sent by the Father from on high, our life to live, our death to die. We read your power to bless and save in the darkness of the grave. Still more in resurrection light, we read the fullness of your might. We will exalt you, God and King, and we will ever praise your name. We will extol you every day and evermore. Your praise proclaim. Why? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Let's pray.