thankful for tonight. I appreciate the goodness of God. And I've really struggled on exactly what to preach tonight. I told Katie the other day, I feel like I've written three or four different outlines out of three or four different passages of scripture thinking that that's what I was going to preach tonight. And everything just seemed kind of dry. But I was hoping maybe it would just be one of those testifying services. where everybody just got in the spirit and testified, but obviously that's not happening tonight, amen? And I don't know if that's just the spirit not moving or that everybody's throat's so sore they can't talk. I know Katie and Joseph had this, whatever it is, going around. I felt so bad for her last night, I had went to, we were down in Gaffney, I was preaching last night in Gaffney, and we got up to sing. And she tried her best. I told her she didn't have to, but she tried, but she couldn't sing but a couple lines and her voice was gone. So I guess it's just that kind of that time of year. It comes along with it. Amen. But but anyway, John chapter number three, you don't even really need your Bible tonight. You know, the verse that I'm going to read, you could quote it. we're going to go to verse number 16 and I'll give to you what the Lord's put on my heart and you know I'm glad that the Word of God it's it's relevant no matter what's going on and it has to be it has to be dry a long time for seed to be affected and I'm glad the Word of God is true no matter how we feel or what's going on in our life and I'm thankful for that I was thinking before when I was thinking about preaching and I was thinking about the Thinking about wishing it would be a testimony service, my mind went back to my wicked days when I was a young preacher's kid. And you don't have to say amen to this. But preacher's kids are meaner than the devil sometimes. But I remember sitting in service, and I always tried to figure out that perfect number of how many people it took to stand up and testify before dad wouldn't preach. And it was hard to do. It varied from time to time. And sometimes, I mean, it felt like it was so close, and then it was just not enough, and he would end up preaching anyway. But I was thinking about that whenever I thought about having a testifying service. I was thinking, I wonder how many people it would take tonight to testify for me not to have to preach. But we didn't even get close, amen. John chapter number three, let's stand in honor of the reading of God's word. John chapter three, and let's look at verse number 16. We could read this entire chapter, so much truth in this passage, but let's just read verse number 16 and verse number 17, and then I'll give to you just the simple thought the Lord has placed on my heart tonight. The Bible said, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Lord, we thank You for giving us the opportunity to be here in the service tonight. Lord, I thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your love. I thank You for this week and what it represents being Thanksgiving. And Lord, certainly I have to admit in my life I have so much to be thankful for. And Lord, there's no way I could probably even bring to my mind everything that You've done for me. But Lord, we certainly are grateful tonight. And Lord, I pray that you'd help us to be a thankful people. And Lord, above all, I pray that you'd help us, Lord, to be thankful for the gift of your son. Lord, the greatest gift that was ever given, the greatest message that we've ever heard is the gospel of the cross, the gospel that Jesus Christ was willing to come to this earth. And Lord, I pray that in this holiday season, Lord, that no matter what happens, that we'll never forget, Lord, that everything good in our life is from you. And Lord, I pray that we would make you the emphasis of it. Lord, help us tonight. We love you. In your name we pray. Amen. Thank you for standing. You can be seated. I was thinking about the night and of course it being Thanksgiving week and I was thinking about my own life and you know how much that I have to be thankful for. And of course you know that if you live in America, just that simple fact gives us a lot to be thankful for when you consider the other places around the world and the things that people have. But you know, I thought about how important that Thanksgiving is in regards to the Christian life especially. Now you know there's a lot of lost people that will celebrate Thanksgiving this week. and they'll go and enjoy time with their family, some people that are good people, but they'll enjoy time with their family and they'll reflect to some extent on what's been done in their life and they'll call it luck or good fortune and they'll be thankful for that. But I thought about, you know, as a Christian, Really, we should be challenged even more to have a spirit of thanksgiving. And of course, we know the holiday of thanksgiving is not found in the scripture. It wasn't celebrated. It's only been celebrated in our country since the beginning of America. But the idea of it certainly is found all through scripture. The nation of Israel was a very thankful people. They had feasts and days that they had set aside to thank God for particular things that had happened in their nation. And then when you get to the New Testament, it's commanded. I think Brother Corey read there in Thessalonians Sunday morning about the scripture where Paul said, in everything give thanks. And that's a great command. And I thought really, you know, about the power of thanksgiving and how powerful that it is in our life. It's amazing how that just through thanksgiving, it brings a certain favor of God. When you look through the scripture, there's a certain favor of God that is accompanied with being a thankful person and with having a heart of thanksgiving. You look at the flip side of it and you think about how all through scripture, that almost every sin that man ever commits, it comes from being unthankful. You can go all the way back to the garden. I know you've heard this said, but I was just thinking about this today. You can go all the way back to the garden and you look at Adam and Eve and the reason that they partook of the forbidden fruit is because Eve had become unthankful for everything that God had done in her life already. She wasn't thankful for all of the trees that she could eat, and she was focused on the one thing that she couldn't have. I was thinking even about the Ten Commandments, one of the greatest moral laws that God established and is world-known. The Ten Commandments. And do you know almost every commandment in those Ten Commandments can be fulfilled just through thankfulness? Just through having a heart of gratefulness to the Lord. You take the commandment of Not to steal. A person's not going to steal if they're thankful in their heart. Not to commit adultery. You're not going to commit adultery if you're thankful for the spouse that God has given you. Not to have any false gods. You're not going to have a false god before you if you're thankful for God and serving the one true God. And every, you can look all through the scripture and there's just, every sin almost stems from just a heart of unthankfulness. It can be traced back to that. And man by nature, we just, sometimes it's frustrating, but sometimes by nature we just have such an unthankful spirit. That's just a part of the depravity of man. But then when you look at the flip side, you realize how uniquely characteristic it is of a Christian to be thankful. That's one thing that really sets apart a Christian. That's one thing that set apart the Apostle Paul is that all through his ministry, no matter where he was, he was thankful for what God was doing in his life. And you read the writings of the Apostle Paul, And it's like that he never got down, he never got discouraged, even though I'm sure he did, but he was just always thanking God for what he was doing. And if it got rough in the Apostle Paul life, then he would just say, I thank God that he saved me. The chiefest of sinners, he saved me and delivered me from the life that I once had. And I'm thankful as a Christian, that's true to us. Even when it does get rough and it don't seem like there's much to be thankful for, we can at least be thankful for salvation. But anyway, I want to look in this text and the one thing that just brought me to this verse tonight is I was thinking about the love of God. And you know, thankfulness, it really implies a gift or something that has been given or been bestowed upon our life. For you to become thankful first, there needs to be something to be thankful for. And we go through that in this time of Thanksgiving. You know, we're thankful for our family, and it's okay to even be thankful for the things that God has given you. I think we should set aside time, even in our prayer life, to say, Lord, I want to thank you for blessing me. I want to thank you for my vehicle. I want to thank you for my house. I want to thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for your provision in our life. Thank you for our family. Sometimes we're just thankful for one another, thankful for our church. You can look at a broader scale. We're thankful for the country God's let us live in. I mean, there's so many different things to be thankful for. But I was thinking about the love of God. And of course we're coming up on Christmas in just a few weeks and this is the time of year where I guess we give more gifts than any other time of year. And I guess the greatest gift that was given to us, one of the greatest things that we have to be thankful for is the love of God. And then you might say, well, hold on, shouldn't we be more thankful for the gift of the Son of God? And you'll see that here in John chapter 3 and verse 16 that God did give His Son. But you know that every gift that is given, it stems from love. It begins, if it hadn't have been for God's love, then He never would have sent His Son, and the cross would have never took place, and we would never be saved. So definitely I think that the love of God is something to be thankful for. And basically that's what I want to look at in this text and think about the thought of just being thankful for God's love. The greatest gift I think that we've been given this evening is the love of God. Now let's look real quickly at about five things in this text. First of all, I want you to notice with me And there's a lot of different ways, I'm sure this verse has probably been preached on more than any other verse in scripture, and there's a lot of different ways you could approach this verse, and probably every preacher, every time they preach it, they try to look at it from a different aspect. But just in looking at this verse with the subject being the love of God, the subject being His desire to bless us, I want you to see first of all the source that is mentioned. I think there's a lot that we can gather from the love of God and the songwriter did, I mean, he said it best, I guess, when he wrote the love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong. That third verse explains it all. There's no way we could describe the love of God. I mean, you could preach. long as you wanted to, right? There's no way you could exhaust God's love. It's really just hard for us to understand. But you see a lot about God's love when you look at the source. Now look with me in this text. You only have to look at it. I know you can see it in your mind tonight. But the second word, he said, for God. The second word describes to us the source of of the love that has been bestowed in our life. It comes from God. That's the creator of the universe. That's the one true, that's not a little gene. That's the one true God, Jehovah. Now there's three things about this that you can understand, you can see the source. I think that when you just look at the source of it, you have to say that definitely this is the greatest love because it comes from the greatest being. I mean, it comes from the Almighty. And if He is the Almighty and He is the greatest, then the love that is going to be shown from Him is going to be the greatest love. And we refer to it that way many, many times. But you'll find that just looking at the source and the fact that it's God's love, it shows us the power of this love. It goes to reason that if this love is coming from the most powerful being in the world, if this love is coming from the God who created the universe, the God who was able to step out on that ship in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and calm the winds and the waves, the God who is in control, the God who could stop the sun and leave it in its place. I mean, when you look at the awesomeness and the almightiness of God, and you think how powerful that He is, there's never been any other power that's been able to supersede our God. And because of that, we can assume that His love is going to be the most powerful love that there He is. And you know, I'm glad that there was a day in my life where I came in contact with the power of God's love. There's no other love. You look through Scripture and love is a powerful thing. This maybe emphasizes a little too much in the day that we live, but it is a powerful thing. It's amazing. Sometimes you can just change someone's attitude just by showing them love. But the love of God can change our life. I mean, the love of God, when it is shown, it can take a sinner that, I mean, people have given up on, and people have pushed aside, and it can change their life and completely turn them around. It's amazing the power of the love of God. So the source, the fact that our love is from God, it shows us that it's a powerful love, but secondly, you'll find that it shows us that it's a very pure love. We know that God is completely pure. In Him is light. There's no darkness at all. He's holy. He's righteous. He is the standard by which we judge every other moral action. He is the standard of purity and holiness. And if He's a pure God, then the love that He emits in our life is going to be a pure love. You know, the best that we can do in the love that we have for one another, you can never really be completely sure, maybe in very, very close relationships, but in times in life, you'll be surprised to find out that someone's love was not so pure. That someone's love in your life maybe had selfish intentions or they just had a desire for themselves to benefit themselves in sending love to you. But the fact is, we can always rest assured that God's love is pure. I was talking to a man just last night. and he was talking about a trial that he had went through in his life. He said one day he woke up and his wife told him, he was a preacher and serving God, but he said he woke up one day and his wife told him, she said, listen, I don't love you anymore and I'm leaving. And she left and wouldn't even try to work out the marriage. And I thought, my soul, I can't imagine how heartbreaking that is. And you know, we're never really certain of everyone else's love, but I'm glad we can be certain of God's love. that is absolutely pure love. The love that God's given us, He's not looking to be reciprocated to. He's not looking for any favor of His own life. He's looking just to extend love into our lives. So the fact that He's a powerful God means it's a powerful love. The fact that He's a pure God means it's a pure love. But also I thought about the permanency of this love, that it's permanent. You know that God is a permanent God. He's everlasting. That's one of the names that is attributed to God, the everlasting. He's always going to be the same. And that means that if God never changes, then the love that He shows in my life never changes either. His love is always going to be consistent. My love and our love for each other can change and fluctuate and there'll be times in every relationship where your love is stronger than maybe at times before. But you know the fact is God's love is just as strong in our life today as it was yesterday, as it was the day we got saved, as it was when we were lost and in sin. God's love never ever changes. It's permanent in our life. And I'm so thankful for the permanency of God's love and that it's everlasting. It's always going to be there. Even when we mess up and we fail Him and we fall short, His love is still real in our life. So there's the source of this love that's found just in the second word, for God. I mean, there's a big statement that this love is something special because it's coming from someone special. Not only that, but you'll also notice with me, secondly, that there's a significance that is mentioned about this love. Not only the fact that the source is God, for God, and then the next two words is that He's so loved. Now, you know, it's interesting because you think in this text, and it's hard to even imagine it this way, I was saying it in my mind a little earlier today, and we know this verse so well, it's hard to even imagine it this way, But this text you could say, for God loved the world. And that would give us a clear understanding of what the Lord is saying. But He put this little word, so, in there. For God so loved the world. And I don't think He meant it necessarily like... You know, a lot of teenagers use it. Man, that's so cool. I don't think that's what God meant necessarily. But you'll find that this little word, so, that's put here, it means in this manner or like this. It connects. The next two words that he gave, the next three words that he gave. This little word, so, that's put before love, means that there's more to come. There's going to be something connected. Basically, the Lord, and you know he's talking to Nicodemus, we didn't even look at the context of this, but he's talking to Nicodemus, and he's saying to Nicodemus, God loved the world, and let me tell you how much he loved you. And basically it's God saying that this is a love, not only is the source a great source, but this is a love that is going to be exhibited, it's going to be expressed in a way. And you know, I'm glad that God was willing to express His love toward us. He was willing all through the Old Testament. You see God's love being shown toward man. God's love to Adam and Eve when He could have taken their lives. He could have kicked them out of the garden. He could have forgot about them. But yet God's love that He gave them coats of skin and that He let them live. You look at God's love in Abel's life, and God giving him a sacrifice, and the nation of Israel, God's love for the nation of Israel when they were in bondage in Egypt. On and on and on you see God's love is exhibited places where God should have destroyed man. Even in Genesis chapter 6, when man was wicked and vile, he still loved the world enough to give Noah the Word to build the ark. And it's amazing when you look at the love of God, and I'm thankful that God's love is displayed. It's not a secret love, but God's love has been displayed in our life. It's a very significant love. He gave. We can give things without necessarily loving, but you've heard this said probably a million times, but you can't love somebody without giving. True love is sacrificial love. True love is a giving love. And I'm glad that God expressed his love toward us. You see, the source of his love is God, the significance he so loved that he gave. But I want you to notice with me the specialness. What makes this love so special that the Lord has? And you know in the rest of this verse he said that he gave, and who did he give? He gave his only begotten Son. Now you realize the strength, you realize the permanence of God's love when you see the price that he was willing to pay to show his love. You know, I was thinking about it's getting close to Christmas time, and I'm tired. I don't like to spend money. I don't like that part of Christmas. I'm trying my best to convince my wife and everybody that we just need to go back to the old days, and it doesn't need to be about gifts. And that's mostly because I don't like to spend money. But you know who gets the most money at Christmas, the person I spend the most money on when it comes to Christmas time? It's my wife, because I love her the most. of anybody else in this world, of any person, I love her the most. And when it comes Christmas time, she's going to get the majority of what I spend because it's a special love that I have. And then it trickles down from there. If you have someone special, a spouse that God's put in your life, or some of you that have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and you'll put all your attention into them at Christmas, and then it kind of trickles down to your parents and then to your brothers and nieces and nephew. And the farther out you go, the smaller the gifts get. because it's just not as special of a relationship. So there's something to be said when you look at a gift. It really reflects the kind of love that we have for the person that we're giving to. And you look at the gift that God gave, that He was willing to give His only begotten Son. the most special thing, the most precious thing, and yet He was willing not just to give Him, but to allow Him to take our judgment, the sin that we should have borne, the consequences. He loved us so much that He said, I would rather, what the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, that it pleased Him to bruise Him. He said, I would rather that my son experience the suffering than for the lost and dying world that I love so much. And that's amazing to me, the love of God. It shows you really how special that His love is, that He would be willing to give His only begotten Son. You know, I thought about this world and how most of the world views God as being just a loving God. And they've taken the love of God and they've really frustrated it. They've really taken the love of God and they've said that... I heard a preacher say this last night down in the service last night and I thought it was very true. He said, you know, most people look at the Scripture and they think that the Old Testament is just the God of wrath. The Old Testament is just the God of judgment. The Old Testament is just a mean God and a hateful God. And they think that the New Testament is just a God that loves everybody, and that God came and He just overlooks sin, and He just overlooks immorality, and He's just a God that's just so soft and so loving. But do you know, even though you look through the Old Testament and you'll see glimpses of the judgment of God, do you know where the worst judgment of God ever fell? It was in the New Testament, and it fell on His Son. The worst judgment that God has ever displayed toward anyone was on His Son on the cross in the New Testament, and it shows you how great the love of God is. Listen, sin doesn't, this world has the idea that God just blinks at sin, but sin does not go unjudged by God. God always judges sin. The thing about being saved is that Christ has already taken my judgment. He's already paid that price. And when you look at the gift that was given, that God was willing to give everything. He was willing to give His only begotten Son so that we could be saved. It shows you how special that His love is. The value of His Son. You know, we look at it. We look at the cross and we look at Jesus and we think that there could be nothing more valuable than that. But yet God saw us and He looked at us and in His eyes we were more valuable. He was willing to give His Son to show His love. I'm so thankful for that. You see the source of His love, the significance of His love, the specialness. It's a very special love. You see that just from the fact that He was willing to give His Son. But also, you know, it's amazing to me the scope of His love when you look at this text. And we always go a lot to two portions of this text because it's so true. I still don't understand how a Calvinist can even argue with this verse. It's just so plain. There's not a plainer place in Scripture In verse number 16, he said, he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth. You can back up just a few words and you see the scope of it again when he said, for God so loved the world. The scope of God's love, the recipients of God's love is you and I, this lost and dying world. That's amazing that God would love us that much that he would look at this world. I thought about this, do you know for God to love the world, means that God was looking on the world? And it's amazing to me that God would even look on the world. He's a God of heaven that enjoys the glory and the splendor of heaven. There is not one reason that He should have even been paying attention to this lost and dying world. But yet He looked down on humanity. He looked down in this world. He saw our situation. He saw our desperation. He saw our depravity. And when He should have got angry, when He would have been righteous to send His wrath. Instead, He sent His Son and sent the judgment on Him so that we could be saved. It's amazing the scope of God's love. And you know, when I think about the scope of God's love, it's easy sometimes. We love to say, whosoever will. But I mean, you really think about what that means. You think about who that includes. That includes some wicked, wicked people in this world. Whosoever will, the world that is mentioned, I mean, it includes the most depraved of individuals. It includes people that have committed crimes that are just beyond our imagination, and yet the power of God's love is that He loves them too. They're included in that scope. There's no sin. There's no wickedness. There's no immorality that gets outside of this realm of God's love. It's for the world. It's for everyone. I want you to notice this as well, and this is my last point. I'll close with this, but you'll find the salvation of his love that's mentioned in this text. God is the source of it. He's so loved, that's the significance of it. That he gave, that's the specialness of it. He gave his only begotten son. The scope of it is that whosoever will believeth in him, and he says this, should not perish, but have everlasting life. What the love of God produced was a salvation. A salvation for you and me. He was willing. See, without the love of God, then God would have never gave. Without the love of God, then He would have never sent His Son. Without Him sending His Son, then there would have never been a Calvary. He would have never taken our sin dead on the cross. And without Calvary, you and I would never be saved. The end of God's love is that He was willing to make a way of salvation for us. that He looked upon us. And you know, here lately, I guess maybe the last couple years or so, I've really thought about how, you know, we put a lot of emphasis on God saving us from hell. And I've thought in my mind sometimes that maybe we put too much emphasis on that because, you know, God wants a relationship. It's not that He just wants to save us, but He wants a relationship with us. But you know, the truth is from this text that He really did, His love was shown to save us from hell. Because He said in verse number 16 that they should not perish. The giving of His love, the reason that He gave, yes, it does include a relationship. It does include us being restored to fellowship with Him. But the reason that He gave is because He looked upon us and He said, if something don't change in their life, if they don't have a Savior, then they're going to die and go to hell. They're going to perish forever and ever and ever. And he said, I would rather put the judgment on my son so that the world could believe in me and would not perish but have everlasting life. You know, it's amazing when you look at the love of God, that God's love, He would be willing to extend that to us. Not just to us, but He would be willing to extend that to the whole entire world. And you know that the love of God is no respecter of persons. The love of God is just as real for you and I. Even though as a Christian, we enjoy the blessings of God's love, and there's a lot of people in this world, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the world's idea is that God loves everybody. God loves the whole world, and He does love the whole world, but there's a point that God's love stops. And there's a point that it will stop someday. The place that it stops is at Calvary. See, when we get to the end of this, when God comes back, those that are not in Christ, they're not going to know the love of God. His love was shown through His Son. And there's going to be a day where they realize that the God they thought was a God of love and that He wouldn't send anybody to hell, they're going to realize that they're going to see the wrath of God. But I'm glad tonight, as a saved person, we don't have to experience that. You know, one thing that just convicts me, and I'm closing, but one thing that convicts me so much about God's love is that it really sheds a light on how strong my love is. Because, you know, as a Christian, we're to show the love of Christ. We talk about that, we sing about that, we preach about that. That we're to show the love of Christ to everyone around us. And when you look at God's love, that He was willing to give everything, I thought about, you know, I'm guilty that I'm not willing to give everything sometimes to love somebody. I'm not willing sometimes just to give up. a few minutes to tell somebody about the Lord and to show them that I love them. It's really convicting when you look. A preacher last night, he preached on Jonah and it was a wonderful message. I never heard it preached quite like he did, but he preached on Jonah. And do you know Jonah's problem in Jonah chapter number 4 is that he did not like God's love. He couldn't stand that God had shown grace to those Ninevites. He just couldn't handle it because in fact, in chapter four, Jonah quoted Exodus chapter number 24 that talks about how God is a gracious God and a patient God, but that he wouldn't let sin go unpunished. And Jonah couldn't stand that. Jonah thought God, He thought, God, why are you letting these people go? Why are you letting them off the hook? They're wicked people. Why are you extending their grace? And you remember God prepared that gourd and that worm for Jonah to try to get him to understand the grace of God in his life. And Jonah, he wanted God's grace, but he sure didn't like it when God's grace was extended to someone else. He sure didn't want to show the love of God to someone else. And you know, when you look at a verse just like John 3, 16, and you see how powerful that it is, you see how powerful the love of God is, then we would be a fool to not be willing to show that love to someone else. We would be a fool not to be willing as much as God has loved us, and as much as He's given to us, we would be foolish not to give that and extend that to someone else. But I thank the Lord for His love tonight. He'll maybe just use this thought. And there's so much, as I said earlier, there's so much that we can be thankful for. But I sure am thankful for the love of God. It's good sometimes, I don't do it near as often as I should, but it's good sometimes just to sit and reflect on the love of God. And you look at your life and you look at the things that everything that is in our life, it comes from God's love. It comes from God just giving us something that we don't deserve. Something that we couldn't earn, we couldn't have, and he just extends his love over and over and over again in our life. And he shows us how great it is, how powerful it is, how permanent it is in our life. And I'm thankful that his love is real. Amen, let's stand together.