Merry Christmas. God bless us. God bless us, everyone. Well, it comes that time of year to acknowledge and celebrate the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus Christ, the baby in the manger. But I would like to take us to a point in His life later on after that scene in the manger And it tells us much about who he is, about who God is. After Jesus revealed himself to Israel and began his ministry in Galilee, there was a man of Israel who wanted to talk privately with Jesus. He was an important man, a member of the Sanhedrin that held religious and political authority in Israel. As a good Israelite, he believed in God. He believed there was a God. He believed that God had revealed himself to his forefathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And he wanted to meet Jesus alone at night because he didn't want any of the other leaders on the Sanhedrin to know that he was doing this. And by this time in Jesus' public ministry, he had worked many miracles, cast out many demons, and preached sermons to many people. And this man realized that only a man sent by God could do these things. This man's name was Nicodemus. And I'm sure Nicodemus had many questions for Jesus about God. Why has God sent you? What message do you bring from God? How is it that you possess this power and authority to preach and to heal and to exercise authority over the unseen world, over evil spirits and over demons? How is it that you can heal people? How is it that your speech is with such vibrant authority? But before Nicodemus could ask any of his questions, Jesus explains to him, he takes over the meeting, he guides the conversation, and Jesus begins to explain to Nicodemus the necessity of the new birth, the mystery of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the things he preached as being from heaven. and that he himself had come from heaven. And it's from this meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus that we have perhaps the most well-known words in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus said those words, Nicodemus, in this night meeting. Jesus says this twice because in the words just before in verse 15, Jesus talking about how Moses would lift it up, a serpent, so also Jesus must be lifted up looking forward to his crucifixion one day. And Jesus says it there, whoever believes in Him, whoever believes in the Son of Man will have eternal life. And that was the purpose for John's writing. John says at the end of his Gospel, I have written these things. These things are written so that you might believe in the name of the Son of God and that believing in His name you might have everlasting life. That summarizes all of what John says. But in our verse tonight, I want to focus on John 3.16. It's a simple verse. It's not complicated. And if you look at it in the original writing, the very first word is so. For God so loved the world. In English it comes later in the phrase, but in Greek that's the first word. So it is that God loved the world. And it means thus, or in this manner, a rare word that occurs not that often. The root of it does quite a bit, but in this form it only occurs here and a few other places. So I got to thinking about that, and as we think about how God loved the world, we can summarize or approach this in two ways. There's two ways that I'd like to focus on that we come at this. First of all, the manner or the method in which God loved the world. the process, the logistics. And secondly, what was God's heart? What was His attitude as He showed His love to the world through His Son? Well, so first of all, how did God do it? What was the logistical method or mechanism in His doing it and sending His Son? And that's the word, send. John 3, verse 17 starts, that God did not send the Son to the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved. So it's a negative statement. God sent the world not to condemn the world. God sent the Son so that through the Son the world might be saved. That word send, it's a translation of a word from which we get the word apostle. God apostled Jesus to the world. He sent Jesus to the world. And that simply means to bring a message by someone or through someone or to send word. You see, Jesus was sent by God to the world on a mission to bring a message of salvation in order to establish the judicial foundation for salvation by his word and by his message. In other words, Jesus was the first apostle. He came to explain to us how God was going to do this. in a practical, judicial, and even maybe a forensic sense. That has to do with courtroom language, where God is the judge and man has sinned. Man stands before God as a sinner and needs help, needs saving. He muscled his son into the world to overcome the consequences of the sin of mankind by taking upon himself those consequences. This is what the son would do. This is what the baby in the manger would do. He would grow to become a man, and he would take upon himself the consequences for the sin of all those who believe in him. See, God is holy and just, and perfect and without sin. No sin can come near to God. If we were ever to have any hope of approaching God ever, it would have to be through some mediator. In some way, our sin would have to be dealt with, erased, taken away. And of course the whole Old Testament, the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, the covering, the blood that was shed, all the sacrifices, points forward to a final and full sacrifice. And this is what God the Son would be. He would provide that sacrifice. So in one sense it's very mechanical, judicial, forensic, logistic, and we see this in Paul's words. where he says in 2 Corinthians 5, For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. For our sake. And again in Romans 5.8, But God shows His love for us. You see, there it is again in Romans 5. God is showing His love in this practical, logistical way. In that while we were sinners, still sinners, Christ died for us. And the important words are for us. baby in the manger would grow, and He would lay down His life for us, for those who believe in Him. Jesus died on the cross in the place of, or instead of, all who would believe in Him. And we call this vicarious atonement, substitutionary atonement, if you want to go home with a big word. He suffered the punishment for sin in our place, to put it simply. He stood in our place before God's justice. God has reckoned that He would be the one. He designated Him to be our substitute, our sacrificial lamb. Now, how does this come to us? By faith. Ephesians 2 verse 8, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's by faith. Where does the faith come from? God gives the gift of faith to His people. They believe. By His grace, He gives them this gift. And through this faith, we are saved. That's called justification by faith. Another theological term. So first of all, we see that God sent His Son to the world in order to provide the legal foundation for the fulfillment of His plan of salvation. Very simple. That's how it works. You believe in Jesus. On the last day, when you stand before God, you will not stand alone. Jesus Christ will take up your cause. This one has believed in me. Let him into our kingdom, O Father. And on that basis, God will recognize this. And your sin will have been punished in Jesus on the cross. And his righteousness will have been reckoned or imputed to you by faith. And it's on that basis that and only on that basis that any of us will ever have any hope of heaven. So God sent His Son. But if we stop there, if that were all we were to say about how God loved the world, we would fail to fully understand, I think, God's love in sending His Son. And this is kind of where I want to land this evening. What was God's heart? What was His attitude as He revealed His love to the world in Jesus Christ? Was it grudging? Was he reluctant? Was he upset because we're sinners? Because Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit in the garden so long ago, and they sinned, and we like them sin, and there's sin and bloodshed and misery throughout the history of mankind. And God says, well, I just have to send my Son if I want to do anything with these people. Here you go. No, it wasn't like that at all. It wasn't like that at all. And we see this in John 3.16, 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. This giving, it's a word that appears everywhere in the New Testament. It means to give something of value freely. It occurs too many times for me to really say a lot about everything it says, but one thing that stood out to me as I thought about this is the time that Jesus Christ fed the 5,000 on the hills around the Sea of Galilee. He had been ministering and he had just heard that John the Baptist had been executed, and he got in a boat and he went to a secluded place. But the crowds knew that someone spied on him and saw him, and they followed him. And they ran around the sea and they met him where he was, And hundreds upon hundreds kept coming and coming, and pretty soon there were thousands, 5,000 people, 5,000 men, not including the wives and children. And Jesus ministered to them. He had compassion on them. He healed them. He taught them. And it was all day, and now it was getting dark. And Jesus said, give them some food to His disciples. And the disciples said, look, if we go out and buy 200 denarii of food, it would be barely enough for just a little bit for each one of them. Where are we going to get all this food? Well, Jesus says, we will give them some food. Have them sit down. So the disciples are scurrying about. He got a crowd of 5,000 people here. And we're told in the Gospel of Mark that they sat them down in companies of hundreds and fifties and got them all arranged. It was a large grassy area. 5,000 people with kids. 5,000 men with their wives and kids. And Jesus was given a basket of two loaves of bread and five fish. And he bowed his head and he sat down and he said a blessing over the food. And then he began to break the loaves and break them. And he gave the food that he broke to the disciples, who in turn then passed it out to the people. Now you have the twelve apostles, maybe other disciples, but I can just picture all of them scurrying about, handing out food, and Jesus is breaking the bread, and it's coming, and it keeps coming, and it keeps coming. They go back, they get more, maybe they can get containers, and they bring it around, and they distribute it to the people, and they're eating, and they're bringing, they're eating, and the food never stops. He's giving, and He's giving, and He's giving, and He's giving. He gave to the disciples, they gave to the people, and they all ate. All of them. And they were satisfied. When Jesus blessed that basket of food, oh God, please bring your favor upon this meal. That's why we pray, isn't it, over our meal? Because Jesus did. And this miracle happened over and over and over. And I think that in the eating of it, I would imagine there was great joy. That God enjoyed doing this for these people, that Jesus enjoyed giving it to the disciples, the disciples running around enjoyed giving it to the people, the joy on their faces as they went from being very hungry to being full, they were all satisfied, had more than enough. And I think we see this also, this joy of God and joy of Christ in the message of the angels when they said to the shepherds when they were stricken with fear at the appearance of the angel, the angel said, fear not, because I bring you what? Good tidings of great joy. This is good. This is good, what you're going to see here, what you're going to find. This is very good. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, Christ the Lord. And they went and found the babe later on. But then also the rest of the angels came and sang, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and goodwill toward men. It's a message of peace. It's a message of joy. And God has great joy in bringing this message and bringing this Son. I believe that God loves saving people. God loved sending His Son. Although it was mixed with angst and turmoil and had to overcome sin, yet God's heart was such that He took great joy in bringing salvation to the world. For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son. And I think that's why we take joy in giving. Don't you take joy in giving? Don't you love to give? I mean, you buy a gift, you bring it to that person that you love, and you watch them open it, and it gives you great joy to watch them open it. I like to do that. That's why we give at Christmas, isn't it? The Lord loves a cheerful giver. We're created that way. We're created in the image of God. This is the feeling that we have that God has as well, because we're created in His image. This brings us great joy. God loves a cheerful giver. It is more blessed to give than to receive. And just as we take joy in giving, so also God takes eternal and boundless and perfect joy in giving His Son to the world. So God has sent his Son, he's put everything in place for our redemption and our salvation. All we have to do is believe in Jesus. Now there's a cost with believing, you also have to leave your sin behind, but believing is free, it's of the grace of God. God has sent his Son and God has given his Son with great joy, limitless joy, boundless and perfect joy. given His Son to the whole world, so that if anyone believes, whosoever will believe, will not perish but have everlasting life. That at the name of Jesus Christ, if you call upon His name, you shall be saved. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. I think Nicodemus departed that night, departed his meeting with Jesus that night, with a choice to make. He could either believe what Jesus said or not. And here we are. You could call this a meeting with Jesus. We've looked at the words of Jesus Christ. You have a choice to make. I have a choice to make. Do we believe this or not? Do we believe that really in Jesus Christ is eternal life, salvation, that by placing our simple faith in Him, you shall be saved? Do you believe that? I believe that. Let's pray. Father, bless us. Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for Your grace. Help us to believe You, Lord. Forgive us for our unbelief. Thank You for sending Your Son. Thank You for the joy we see in Your giving of Your Son. In Jesus' name, amen.