What about love? So the text that we read today talked about these three, faith, hope, love. And I preached three messages, this being the third, on this theme of characteristics of the gospel. The gospel, Paul tells us, is the birth, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel literally means, the word literally means good news. In other words, when we talk about Christmas and we talk about gospel, we're talking about euangelion, is the Greek word, and you get almost gelion, you get almost good news out of gelion. And that's where we get the idea of good news. And Paul tells us in the text we just read today, that when he was a child, he spoke as a child, became a man, he put away childish things. And he's talking about these three great truths, faith, hope, love, and the greatest of these is love. And then we look at this good news that Christ loved the world, that God loved the world. And so then we got to John 3, 16, which is a relatively familiar text, for God so loved the world. And we're looking at which is the greatest, faith, hope, love. And Paul tells us that the greatest of these is love. And Christmas ultimately is about the love of God. Christmas is ultimately what we read in John 3.16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The world is full of talk about love. Satan has misjointed and destroyed the biblical concept of love. It was all over the internet this week of a horribly, I don't even know the right word for the young lady, mentally hurting, emotionally hurting, but she determined that she was going to be on the internet to earn money, and she was going to have sexual immorality with 100 men in 24 hours. And she did that this week. And they interviewed her afterwards. And we have so disjointed and so obliterated what God's love really is like. God's love, the idea of love is this. Love is seeking the other's benefit even at the cost of my comfort and security. So let me say that again. Because the world has lost the true idea of love. I've probably performed over 350 weddings and probably done, oh my goodness, 250, 300 premarital counseling for several sessions. This December, here in about a week, will be my 39th anniversary of ordination. So I've been ordained for 39 years. And especially in the military, on active duty, people are deployed, they're in a distant place like Guam and away from family and friends, they want to get married and they go see a chaplain, you know. And so we do that kind of stuff and all the time. And one of the things I always ask a couple in premarital counseling is give me your definition of marriage. And you know, it's always great to watch 19, 20, 21 year olds, 22 year olds, 23 year olds. come up with their deep experience from Cinderella and Sleepless in Seattle and Beauty and the Beast because that's where they've learned about love because so many of their homes are fractured. And so their definition of love is given to them by Disney World or Disneyland. So, you know, well, respect, communication, all those things are true. And I always give them the one that shocks them. I said that my definition of what love truly is and what marriage truly is, is change. Because when you get married, that's all you have left in your pocket. So anyway. No, I'm teasing, but it is true at the same time. Because marriage brings these little people into your, and then they're fur babies that come into your world, and then a bigger car, and then they become teenagers and wreck your car, and so then your insurance goes up. So what you're left with is just change. No, actually, change is what love really is because love is about seeking the other's benefit even at the cost of my comfort and security. Because life is about change, health changes, age changes, jobs change, children change you, grandchildren really change you because you get to give them sugar and give them back to their parents. And I'm not talking about kisses, I'm talking about sugar because I want them to hurt as bad as they hurt me when they were my kids. Again, joking, but life change, your job, loss of job, loss of health, getting a good job, getting a bigger house, having to downsize because you lost your job. investing in something where you were shystered and you lose money. There is so much change in life and love is about saying, I will seek the other's benefit even if it costs me my comfort and my security. Now take that definition of Jesus Christ because I've been giving you definitions of what faith is, about what hope is, and what love is. So think about Jesus Christ. He owns the universe. He said, let there be light in a universe came into existence with 2 trillion galaxies, each with well over 100 billion stars. The closest star to us is 4.3 light years away from us. In our galaxy, the Milky Way, they just did a graph of the largest black hole that we have now discovered. It's 15 billion light years away, and the mass of that of that black hole is greater than a million galaxies. One black hole's mass is greater than a million galaxies. And my God said, let there be light. And John 1 says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by Him, and nothing that was made was made without Him. You get down to verse 14, and it says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld the glory as of the glory of the Father. In other words, the word glory means the visible manifestation of one's essence. In other words, when you saw Jesus, you saw the Father. You saw this being that said, let there be light. And our evolutionist friends who think that every molecule that exists in the universe was in one small dust pebble that exploded, Their cosmology has been completely wiped out in the last three years because the immensity of the universe that we have now discovered is so great that their assumption about a constant expanding universe cannot work because the universe is so much bigger than the 15.7 billion years that supposedly is how long the universe has existed that their cosmology and their scrambling in their reviews to explain how we have been wrong, the universe, the big bang doesn't work anymore. Well, that's because God said, let there be light. And there was a bang and it was big. And that's this Jesus. That's this Jesus that created the world knowing that he would have to redeem it, knowing that it would sin, knowing that he would have to give up his comfort and his security. He would have to take on flesh. He would have to put off the independent exercise of his divine attributes. Wow, is that a mouthful. So let's tear that phrase down. He would have to give up the independent. Before he becomes in the manger, Jesus Christ is independent. He can blink his eyes metaphorically in the lightning flashes. He speaks as peals of thunder. He is independent. He must give up his independent divine. He's fully God, 100% God. Created the universe John 1 3 says he made everything so he gives up his divine attributes of his being anywhere at once of Knowing everything at once of being all powerful all at once He gives up all his omniscience and so now he knows what the Holy Spirit and the Father tell him because he's going to become fully God and fully man and He gives up the independent exercise of His divine attributes to take on two kidneys, to take on a spleen, to take on a pancreas, to take on two eyebrows, and to be born in a cave, in a conquered nation, outcast by the Roman Empire, and to come and take the sin of the world, your sin and my sin. Knowing all of that, He still created us so that He could redeem us. He gives up his comfort and he gives up his security. And I tell couples, your relationship through the years, as I'm doing premarital counseling, is going to be one act after another, after another, after another, after another of changing so that you give up comfort and security, even if you don't get what you think you deserve in return, you give up because that's what love is. Love doesn't say I get my own. Love says I give up comfort and security for that one that I'm committed to for life. That's love. Jesus Christ exemplifies love, and we're going to look very quickly this morning at nine aspects in one verse of what love really looks like. So number one, put on your thinking caps. Some of you are already saying, Pastor, you're talking too fast. Actually, you're thinking too slow. So speed up how fast you think a little bit, and we're going to go through this. So I want to talk to you about what about love. aspects of biblical love found in John 3.16. Number one, if you're taking notes with me and it's in your bulletin there, I was getting there, true love always revolves around God. True love, you cannot truly love if you don't know God. You say, wait a second, how does that work? Because God, we are made in the image of God. We are made in His image, and if He is the essence of love, then to really know what love is, you may have like, you may have emotional feelings, you may have satisfaction, you may have joy, but the true level of Jesus' love cannot be known unless you know God. The verse starts with, for God, John 3.16. For God. All love starts with God. He doesn't start with for man. He doesn't start with for animals. He doesn't start with for plants and trees and stars. He starts with for God. Christ at creation, Christ at his birth, Christ at his death, Christ at his resurrection, and Christ at his return is all about love. It's all about love. As I've already introduced it, Christ at creation, the greatest aspect of creative love is that Christ knew he was going to have to redeem because he knew we were going to sin. I got news for you. If I'm God, I don't make you. I don't. Because I don't make somebody that's going to disappoint me. And in my love, it's going to send me to the most vicious and cruel death that humans have ever devised, which is a crucifixion. One of the greatest acts of love that God ever did was making me, Paul says that he was crucified before the foundation of the world. Stop and think about that. He was crucified in God's mind. God knew that he was going to, when he created, he knew he was going to have to redeem. And he knew that our sin was going to be so offensive that his holiness would not let him just wipe away our sin, that somebody had to pay for the sin. And that was going to be him. And he went ahead and created. He went ahead and took on our body. And the book of Hebrews says he was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. He never once sinned. That's the reason when he hangs on the cross, God can look down the quarter of time and he can count every hair on each one of your heads. And he can sweep up every sin you've ever fought, every sin you've ever done, every sin you've ever said. And he can lay all those sins on Jesus because Jesus never once sinned. And therefore he could substitute himself. Theologians call it penal substitution. He took the penalty by substituting himself for you. You deserve to be on that cross. I deserve to be on that cross. but we were substituted by Jesus Christ. That's what love looks like. Love doesn't care about its own comfort, about its own security, but rather it gives up itself for that one that it loves. But notice number two, what about love for God? And I've already alluded to it, so loved. For God. so love. Number two, if you're taking notes with me, true love always has a decision orientation to its character. True love always has a decision orientation to its character. We live in a world of feelings. We live in a world of lust. We live in a world in which The OnlyFans, which is a pornographic site, has more revenue and pays its participants more money than the entire NFL football teams. In other words, the entire salary of the NFL football is smaller than the pornography on OnlyFans. And we wonder why our society is so warped. We wonder why we don't have intimacy. We wonder why we don't have true relationships. We wonder why, because everything in our society is transactional and not transformational. Jesus is transformational. Society's love is transactional. You do for me, I do for you. When you stopped doing for me, I stopped doing for you. Jesus said, whether you do for me or not, I will transform you by the power of my love. I'm gonna show you what true love looks like. True love always has a decision orientation to its character. I tell young couples all the time, I say, you are going to be placed in day after day after day, making a decision to love your spouse because they don't deserve it. And they will be forced to make decisions to love you because you don't deserve it. Love says, I am looking for the other's benefit, even at the cost of my comfort and my security. And true love is always about a decision I make, not a feeling I have. True love is always about a decision I make, not a feeling I had. 45 years ago, I met my wife. And we were in high school together. And she came to high school and I was like, wow, new meat, you know, and it's a new girl. And we got to know each other and I'm always cracking bad jokes. Pop-up jokes are worse than dad jokes because you've had more practice. So I cracked a couple of jokes and she laughed. And I found somebody that would laugh and I will never let her go. Never, ever, ever, ever. Guys, if you find a woman that will laugh at your jokes, never let go of her. I don't care what she does, never let go. She sees a rare prize. We were with our kids and the four grandkids not long ago. In fact, it was this summer. And I said something, and my son rolled his eyes, my daughter-in-law rolled her eyes, my daughter really rolled her eyes so loudly, I picked them up and rolled them right back. And my wife is cracking up, and my daughter looks at her and she goes, Mom, stop it. You just encourage him. And she says, you don't understand your father. If you don't laugh at him, he just tries harder. So if you, she said, if you laugh once, he quits and goes away. But if you don't laugh, and Sarah was like, oh, haha. Yeah. Yeah. True love always has a decision orientation to it. The Greek word here is, there's three Greek words for love. One is agape, that's what's used here, and it's a decision-oriented love. Another is phileo, we get our city Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. I lived in Philadelphia for three years going to grad school, and if you've ever been on the Schoolkill Expressway at 4.30 in the afternoon, it is the city of brotherly shove, not the city of brotherly love, let me tell ya. And then there is a word that's not a bad word, But it can be a bad word, but it's not a bad word within marriage. And that's the Greek word for eros. And eros is sexual love. So you had three words in the Greek language. One is a brotherly, more emphasis, not completely, but more emphasis on a filial, a brotherly, a friendship love, like Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. One is more of a sexual nature. We get our word erotic. But eros, there's nothing wrong with eros. Every marriage ought to have some serious eros in it. That's a good thing. But agape is a different kind of love that is much more decision-oriented, and this verse says, for God, it starts with God, made a decision, He loved. He made a decision before He created the world that He was gonna love you and me. And He still created us anyway. One of the more remarkable things about Christ is that His love is decision-oriented, and that's how our love should be. The best marriages, the best relationships are decision-oriented love. When love is about a feeling and not a decision, it comes and goes with feelings. When love is about what you can do for me, in other words, when it's transactional, that comes and goes based on if you're giving me what I want. In these cases, it's you give me money and I will do X, Y, and Z. That is not God's love. And that warps and destroys the intimacy that we are all created to want to have. For God so loved he made a decision to do that. But number three, true love always involves the whole world. Number three, true love always involves the whole world. For God so loved the world. True love, number three, always involves the whole world, for God so loved the world. True love doesn't care what you look like, what your background is, what your past is like. I want you to know that Jesus Christ loves you because he created you and he died for you, and it involves the whole world, for God so loved the world. Not just certain people, God loved everybody. Because every human being is made in the image of God. That is what is such a disaster sociologically in our society when we've shoved the imago Deo, the image of God, out of our thinking and said, no, we're not made in the image of God. We're just random chance. Random chance doesn't have any chance of being transformational. It ends up being totally transactional in whatever kind of civic political environment you want to put it in because humans don't have any value outside of their ability to be transactional helpful. Marx said, Karl that is, said that humans are just cogs and machines and you can use them any way you want. If you look at the videos of the North Korean troops attacking the Ukrainian lines on video, they're being thrown into machine gun fire with no artillery, no tanks, no armored vehicles, and they're just being utterly slaughtered. That's because they come from a Marxist regime that says the individual has no value. The individual has no value. The only value is service to the states. God says every human being from the moment of conception is valued because they're made in my image. They have unique chromosomes, a unique heartbeat. They have a unique design. They are made in the image of God, the moral image of God. That's why we plead for justice, because God is a just God. That's why we have an innate sense of intimacy that we desire, because God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there's an intimacy between the Trinity that way. We are made in the image of God, so we have worth outside of, so a Down syndrome child has worth. A handicapped child from birth has work. We don't throw them away because we don't believe that Karl Marx was right. His philosophy has killed hundreds of millions. You hear people, I've heard people through my lifetime say, well, more people died in religious wars. That is absolute huey. Karl Marx killed more people in the last 150 years than every religious war that has ever existed. Mao Tse-Tung, if you look at Mao Tse-Tung starving 20 million Chinese to death, if you look at Stalin starving 6 million Ukrainians to death in the 30s, you go on and on and on and on because Karl Marx, as I've told you before, lived at the same time as the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon and he hated Spurgeon. They lived 20 miles apart, and he hated Spurgeon. Why? Because Spurgeon offered salvation and forgiveness, and Marx wanted eternal war and destruction. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world. Number four, true love always gives gifts. One of the best parts of Christmas is little kids before they become too jaded. So I sent, we have a family text group. And this past week, they've uncovered the tomb of St. Nicholas. He was a real person. Nicholas was a real person in the ancient church. And they've uncovered and they found his crypt. And so there was a video of it online. And I sent it to my daughter-in-law, my son, and my son-in-law, my daughter. And I said, please don't share this with the littles, or they'll know there's no Christmas, because Kris Kringle's dead. So don't let them think that he's dead or something. One of the greatest things about Christmas is watching little kids' eyes light up. Last year, we were back in Phoenix, and both of our kids are there with our four grandkids. So my son-in-law and daughter decided they were going to do a Nerf Christmas. a Nerf Christmas. So they bought Nerf guns for everybody. So as we got done opening the presents, they said, oh, here's some more presents. They bring them out of the closet. And so every one of the grandkids got, and they were at this time, five, four, three, and two. And so all the adults, so there were six adults, all of them got Nerf guns with Nerf bullets. And this is going to be Christmas Eve. Everybody got to open a present in our family tradition after Christmas Eve service. And and but then they brought out all the nerf guns. So it was shooting each other worth nerf I mean a real joy to the world peace on earth love, you know was shooting everybody with nerf weapons and And then eventually so little Bentley was was three at the time. He loved it you know, he was shooting the dogs with his nerf gun, you know and all this kind of stuff and what I say that just say, you know true love always gives gifts and True love is always about, when you're concerned about the other person more than yourself, you naturally give the gift of time, the gift of listening, the gift of accessibility. You give them gifts. The text says, for God so loved the world that he gave. Gave. Christ gave you the greatest gift of all time. when he was born in a manger, and when he died for you on a cross. There is no other gift that you will ever give. There is no gift I can give my wife. There's nothing that I can give my kids, my grandkids who I'd willingly lay down my life for any one of them. There is no gift that I can give them possibly compared to what Jesus Christ did when he gave of himself for me. True love always gives gifts. Of course, Talk about the Magi coming. By the way, you know, not to ruin your Christmas, the shepherds were there. The shepherds were there, but the kings of the East, the Magi, probably weren't there the day he was born. They probably come a little bit later. It says they were in a house. And when Herod goes to kill the children, he kills everybody under the age of two, because he asks the wise men, when did you see the star? So most people think that the Magi came a few months, maybe, after Jesus was born, and presented him gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which was likely going to be used by Joseph when Jesus has to flee into Egypt. You can go to Egypt today, as I was there a couple of years ago, and you find their tradition of where Jesus lived, actually, in Egypt while he was there. And the Coptic Church, which is about 10% of, it's a Christian church, it's about 10% of Egyptians, have a church they're honoring where they believe Jesus lived when he was a young boy, two, three, four, five years old. Love is always about giving gifts, however. They brought gifts to Jesus, but the greatest gift you can give Jesus when he's given you his life is that you give him your life back. Number five, true love always involves the uniqueness of Christ. True love, number five, always involves the uniqueness of Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, Only begotten Son. That phrase in the Greek language, only begotten, means unique, one-of-a-kind. In the Old Testament, the translation from Hebrew into Greek is called the Septuagint. It was done about 200 years before Jesus was born, and that was for all the Jewish people that lived all over the Mediterranean world that had been dispersed, and their children spoke Greek better than they spoke Hebrew, and so they did a translation of the Bible. When you get to Isaac, And remember, Isaac is a unique only child, right? Only child of Abraham and Sarah. He is unique because Abraham and Sarah were a little bit past child-rearing age, 90s. I really don't think you'd be interested in having any more children, would you Marilyn? I really don't. I don't think Marilyn would be wild about being the next Sarah. I don't know how you're 90 years old and you're chasing a two-year-old. I can't even imagine being 90 years old and chasing a two-year-old around. My littles come for about a two-week visit and my wife and I need a vacation for a week just to I don't know how our kids do it, but we're 60 and and they're 35 so and my my daughter just my daughter-in-law ran 17 miles yesterday and my son did half a triathlon yesterday So I think they have plenty of energy to do all of the chasing of the littles around but but the word there for Isaac is The same word here Megan is the same word unique only begotten Isaac was unique in that his parents were not supposed to have children. They were, I mean, she was past menopause and he was in his 90s. I mean, there's not supposed to be any children here. And Abraham had had another child, Ishmael, which we know about, but they had been unable to conceive together. This was a unique, one-of-a-kind, one and only child. The author, John, uses that same word to describe Christ because there's no other word that they can possibly use to describe the only begotten means a one and unique because he was fully man and fully God and he was born with no sin nature. He had no inclination to sin. He had no inclination to gossip. He had no inclination to be bitter. He had no inclination to do wrong. He had no inclination to do any of those things that you and I both do. He was fully man and fully God. To understand true love, you have to understand that Jesus Christ is unique. That he's the creator of the universe and the redeemer of the universe all at the same time. He's unique. And that's why his love is so amazing. Number six, true love always is available to anyone. Number six, true love is always available to anyone. The text says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever. God's salvation, his redemptive plan for humanity is open to everybody for whoever. True love says whoever wants to receive the free gift. can do so. When my kids, my littles, my grandkids were opening up those Nerf guns. They didn't, my oldest was five at the time. He's now six. He didn't look at his dad. He said, dad, do you want me to like, go carry out the trash? Do you want me to go clean up my room? Do you want me? He didn't ask. He knew it was a gift. true love is always available as a gift to anyone for whoever my my my grandsons you know they were just tearing it they're like oh guys so the moms are showing them how to put the bullets in we're a good second amendment kind of family you know our kids were putting bullets in their guns when they were four they were nerf bullets okay but anyway and um the moms are helping to put the bullets in and then they're shooting them you know and they would come up to me and they were shooting Mimi and Mimi was like ah you know, she was a great actress and should I you know, and and the kids are like I got me me and and and Nobody said hey, what what do we have to do? Man creates a vehicle to gain acceptance with God that involves his work Because man is basically proud Man says what can I do to get to heaven and God says nothing You're a sinner. You've broken every one of my laws. All you can do is open up the free gift of my son's death in your place. That's all you can do. But Noah, I've got to do something. I've got to get baptized. I've got to take communion. I've got to help little ladies cross the street. I've got to feed the poor. All good things and all great things, and not one will get you to heaven. Because God's love is available to anybody, but you have to do it God's way. You have to do it God's way. And God's way says, Titus 3.5, not by works of righteousness, which we have done. In other words, not by the good things I do, not by works of righteousness we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. In Ephesians, Paul says this way, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of work, so that you will never brag in heaven. You'll never boast. True love is always available to anyone, for God so loved the world that whoever, and number seven, believes in Him. Number seven, true love always waits to be received. It always waits to be received. True love says, God, you did this great thing for me, you died on the cross, and my job is to receive your love. It's not to go about to show you how good I am, how wonderful I am, my job is to show you that, to receive your love, John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him. Many years ago, there was a circus that came to Buffalo, New York. Back in those days, this is the early 1900s, they would do all kinds of things to attract crowds to the circus. So they had a tightrope walking act. They don't, of course, allow this anymore, but this is back then. And one of the tightrope walkers put a rope around, got a rope on one side of Niagara Falls, tied it off, tied off on the American side, and then proceeded to announce that he was going to walk across Niagara Falls from the Canadian to American side and back on a tightrope, gather crowds. It's going to put on a free show. Come to the big tent tonight, and you'll see more stuff. So he successfully walked across, back and forth. And by this time, there was a crowd of several hundred people gathered on both sides. And finally, he said to the crowd on one side, how many of you believe I can walk across the tightrope with a child in a wagon, in a wheelbarrow? Everybody like we've seen you we believe everybody was cheering we believe and he said then which one of you will offer up your child to be the volunteer Well, clearly no parent would do that, but there was a little boy that had played hooky from school He had his little hunt lunch and he said I believe mister put me in the wheelbarrow. I The man put the little boy in the wheelbarrow. This is a long time before child protective services. OK, this is a long time before anything like that. The guy would have been in jail for a long time today. But he takes the little boy across and brings him back. That little boy had quite the story when he went home to tell his mom that day. Mom, you gotta come and see the man who wheel-barreled me across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. I imagine that went over really big when he got home. You were supposed to be at school. Yeah, but mom, I had a lot more fun today. So the question is, how many people actually believe? This verse says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth, There's actually one person that really believed. Everybody said, yeah, we believe, we believe. See, belief in Christ, eternal life, is about casting your entire dependence upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what belief is. If you haven't done that, you don't believe. I don't care if you've gone to church. I don't care if you've been catechized, homogenized, and pasteurized. I don't care what you've done of a religious nature. You're not going to heaven. You're not. You're going to pay for your own sin in a place the Bible calls hell, because the wages for sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 6.23. The only one in that whole crowd, even though they all said, we believe, we believe, the only one that believed was the little boy that threw himself, as it were, into the wheelbarrow, and if the man walking the tightrope dies, the little boy dies. That's belief. Anything short of that is not belief. True love always waits to be received. The great thing about true faith is I can go to Rangoon, Yangon, Myanmar, as I have, and be in an attic with 300 believers because the government hates Christians, the Buddhist government hates Christians. And I can be in that stifling hot attic where it's 95 degrees with 99% humidity and listen to 300 Burmese Christians sing for an hour their joy and faith in Jesus Christ and not understand a word, but know I'm in the presence of hero Christians. And I'm at home with family. And I can walk the halls of a military base and wear the same uniform and have the same oath, and feel less at home than I do in that attic of persecuted Christians. As the songwriter said, this world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me, but I can't feel at home in this world anymore. See, true faith Says I want to believe and receive your free gift, and that's true all across the world I've baptized people in Saudi Arabia where it's illegal to do that I've preached to underground churches in Myanmar where it's illegal to do that and Hero Christians all around the world take their lives in their hands because Jesus Christ changed them from the inside out and no evolutionist is No academician, and by the way, I have more degrees. I can die by them. Master's in military science, master's in education, a doctorate, master divinity degree. I can go on and on with all my degrees, but none of them matter because that poor saint in Yangon, Myanmar has Jesus Christ. I would rather be that saint than the most well-trained academician in the world. True faith. always is about receiving Christ's faith. Number eight, true love always saves. The verse says, for God so loved the world that whosoever believeth on him should not perish. God has a gift, and it's about not perishing. God doesn't want you to pay for your own sin. God doesn't want you. And by the way, in the text, he's talking to a man by the name of Nicodemus, who had the equivalent of three PhDs, was one of the 70 leading teachers in Israel, was one of the wealthiest men in Israel, and was attempting to go to heaven by his good works. And Jesus says to him, You won't perish. In other words, this religious, religious, religious, academician, brilliant, rich man, Jesus is saying to him, you are going to perish if you don't receive me. We know from after Christ's death that Nicodemus does receive Christ because he's there at his death and he's there helping Joseph of Arimathea. We know that he was a secret believer. True love always saves. Christ is looking to save. And then lastly, true love always grants incredible blessings. True love always grants incredible blessings. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here's what's interesting about everlasting life. Everlasting life, we often think as a quantity of time. A quantity of time. Everlasting. When you ask a young person, how long is everlasting life? They go, oh, it's forever. But you know that's actually the wrong answer because you framed the question in such a way to make them come to a wrong answer. What type of life is the better question? What type of life? is everlasting life. Because everlasting life is not about a quantity of time, it's about a quality of existence. It's not about a quantity of time, it's about a quality of existence. Because a quality of existence is what allowed the Christians in 67 AD to stand in the Colosseum after the lunatic Emperor Nero, who's 28, is being accused of burning down Rome. And he put the Christians in the circle and released starved pigs and lions on them. And as they stood in the circle in the middle of the Colosseum, and I've been on the floor of the Colosseum, I've been where these Christian martyrs faithfully sang praises to God as the lions tore them limb from limb. And one lion would grab, and we know this from the Roman historians, it was their halftime between the gladiator games, and they would take the Christians out under Nero's reign onto the floor of the Colosseum, and a lion would come and drag a Christian away, and they would just make the circle smaller, and another lion would come and drag another Christian away, and they would make the circle smaller, and they sang praises to God in the face of the mightiest empire the world had ever seen, knowing that everlasting life was about a quality of existence not just the quantity of time. And I've got to stand on that Colosseum floor and imagine looking up into the stands and seeing Nero, who in two years, his Praetorian guard would make him commit suicide because he was insane. And listen with my ears to the 50,000 Romans crying for your blood and singing to the top of your lungs praises to the king as the lions tear you limb to limb. Let me tell you something, that's what love will do. Because love says, it's not just about a quantity of time, it's about a quality of existence. John Wesley, the great founder of the Methodist Church said, our people die well. And until you're ready to die, you're not ready to live. And until you experience God's true love, you have no clue what love really is. You truly don't. But the neat thing to know is, that today you can receive that love. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. All you have to do is receive his gift. God, I know I'm a sinner. I know I deserve hell. I've broken all your rules. I've broken all your laws. And I know you died a perfect death in my place and took all my hell and took all my sin. And the best I know how, right now I wish to receive your free gift of eternal life. And boom, you mean that from your heart and God saves you. and you experience true love for the first time in your life.