ADVENT: LOVE

December 22, 2019
I would suggest further it is the essence of Christmas, with one significant difference.  We buy gifts for people we love or even like, who we think deserve the gifts – sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, etc.  After all, the song says, Santa keeps a list, checking it twice, going to find out whose naughty or nice.  Sit on one of the ubiquitous Santa’s laps, and he will invariably ask, have you been good this year?  And we determine who is on which list and buy accordingly.  If you’re good, our children are led to believe, you receive nice gifts.  If not, well, not.  
Further, again, did we earn the gift?  Is it because we were good, and like Santa’s list, we made the good list, and not the naughty list?  The truth is, if we got what we deserved, it would a bag of coal, to fuel the fires of hell.  You see, Christmas has been hijacked to make it the giving of gifts to those who deserve them.  The true meaning of Christmas is the opposite.  I can’t help but think Screwtape is quite pleased with Wormwood’s success with subverting Christmas.  
The Remedy for the World (16-17) The World’s Need for the Remedy (18-21)
Now, if you have a red letter edition Bible, the verses we just read are likely printed in red ink.  As you may know, the letters in red in the New Testament are theoretically the words of Jesus.  You see, there were no quotation marks when John wrote his gospel, and he didn’t switch to a red pen, either.  Therefore, all those red letters are just good guesses.  And so, it is guessed, Jesus said these things at the end of his conversation with Nicodemus.  While that’s possible, most today believe these verses are actually a commentary by John on Jesus’ conversation.  In other words, most today believe they shouldn’t be in red.  I tend to think that’s correct.
Having said that, it gives me the opportunity to remind us of something very important.  This is the word of God – every word in it.  We believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture as originally written.  Meaning, God inspired every word without error when John and Paul and Peter and the other 35 or so authors wrote.  Every word, inspired just as God wanted.  That means, the red letters are no more important than the rest of the Bible – it is all God’s Word.  We have a tendency to pay a little more attention to those red letters, and I suppose there’s no harm, as long as we realize, it’s all important.  So even when I talked about the most popular verse of 2019, it’s only one verse of over 31,000 really good verses.
So again, what we have here, I believe, are John’s thoughts on what Jesus said to Nicodemus.  Jesus has just told Nicodemus (St. Nick) that all must be born again if they want to see the Kingdom of God – Jew, Gentile, man, woman, teacher, learner, ruler, follower, blue collar, white collar, American, Middle Eastern, Asian, African – it does not matter.   Everyone must look to the Son and believe as He was lifted up from the earth, on a cross.  
Now, why did God send His Son on that first Christmas?  Look at verses 16 and 17 as we see the remedy for our sinful, condemned position.  For God so loved the world.  That tells us why God did what He did.  Remember, the word forkicks us back to verses 14 and 15 – “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”  For so, God loved the world.  
That is an amazing, incomprehensible truth.  It’s really indescribable (which is why Paul, later speaking of this truth in II Corinthians 9, said, “thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.”  This Wednesday, you’ll open gifts, and some will be really cool.  But you’ll be able to say, I got the Iphone 11, or the Frozen 2 movie – and that’s all you’ll need to describe it.  Even if you get a gift from Neiman Marcus’ Christmas catalog, you’ll still be able to describe it in a sentence or two.  But God’s gift to us on the first Christmas?  Indescribable.  I’ll make a feeble attempt to help us plumb some of the depths of these indescribable truths.  I can’t use adjectives big enough to proclaim this.  There is much we need to see.  
For so, in this way, God loved the world.  Stop right there.  Kosmos is the word for world.  Of its almost 200 uses in the New Testament, it’s almost always used in connection with the sinful condition of the world – the evil world system. Listen, we’re not talking about the planet earth here.  God did not love the planet – this is not a biblical basis for love your mother earth.  
Rather, John tells us, God loved this sinful world.  Which means God’s love for the world is to be admired not because the world is so big, but because the world is so bad.  That is a truth we could camp on for awhile.  We could start with the word, love.  It’s the word agape, which speaks of a self-sacrificing kind of love.  That’s true for sure, because this love caused God to give His only begotten Son. 
Now, for us, love is found in the loveliness of the object loved.  We love a movie because it was interesting, kept our attention, full of action or adventure, love and romance.  We love a meal because it’s good.  Again, for most of us, that’s why we buy the special gifts for the special ones at Christmas.  They are loved.  We love something because there’s something loveable about it.  The truth is, if we’re honest, for most of us, our love is conditional.  For example, when we fall in love and eventually marry someone, it’s because we find something loveable about the other person.  There’s something that causes us to say, “Will you marry me?” and something that causes us to reply, “Yes.”  I mean, let’s be honest – not many of us found the most unattractive, most unlovable, most undesirable person on the planet and said, will you be my bride?  
But there is a sense in which that is exactly what God did.  He sent His Son to die for and receive a bride from among the most undesirable of His creation.  God loved the world.  That’s amazing.  He would have been perfectly just and holy and reasonable and right to send the whole of us straight to hell, which is what we deserved.  But He loved us.  Can you explain that?  If you don’t hear anything else today – hear that – God loves you.  
“But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness [not on the basis of our loveliness], but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”
The idea of redemption is paying a price for a slave – to buy us back to be His bride.  A bride price was paid, if you will, and the price was high.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.  The Greek word monogenes means one and only, unique.  God gave all He had to give – His only, unique Son – there was no other to give.  Romans 8 says it this way, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all.”  Indescribable gift.
These verses are John’s commentary – John’s way of saying what Jesus meant – you must be born again.  You must believe Jesus is who He said He was, and He did what He came to do – namely, be lifted up on the cross so that all who believe in Him can have eternal life.
To have eternal life is to know God through His Son and be in relationship with Him such that you experience the blessings that flow from that relationship, both now and in the life to come.  Conversely, to perish is to not know God and not experience His blessings – both now and in the life to come.  It means God’s wrath remains on you and therefore you experience that wrath for eternity.  
I find it interesting that many today try so hard not to offend people with the gospel – this perishing thing is so negative.  We see these kinds of man on the street interviews where people are asked things like, “What do you think about Christians?” or, “Christians think you need to be saved – do you feel lost?”  And when the man or woman on the street rails against Christians, saying things like, “I’m really offended when someone tries to convert me” or, “I’m really offended when they tell me I’m a sinner, those hypocrites,” or, “I don’t feel lost,” or “I was born right the first time.”  
Because we stand condemned.  And it is true, the world, people don’t generally like that part of the message.  We shouldn’t expect the world to like that – to think our message wonderful.  Paul said the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.  They dragged Paul out of the city, stoned him and left Him for dead.  Jesus said, if they hated me, they will hate you also. They crucified Him.  If you had done a man-on-the-street interview back then, I doubt they’d have many favorable things to say about Jesus and Paul.  To tell them is to offend them – it’s why the gospel is called the rock of offense.  We’re not trying to win a popularity contest.  But we are telling them, because we love them.  It’s interesting so many think of Christians as bigots, as judgmental, as even hateful.  That’s not true – we share because we love them.  To not share the remedy for their sinful condition is the true definition of hate.  
Therefore, verses 18-21, you must believe.  John brings out the importance of faith.  Yes, it is true that God loved the world and gave His Son for the world, but that does not automatically bring salvation.  No one is saved without believing.  No one is saved even by believing in Christmas – Santa or even the baby Jesus.  And the sad fact is, many don’t – even when presented with the wonderful good news of the gospel.  Why?  Verse 19 – This is the judgment, that the Light [that’s Jesus] has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.  Immersed in their wrongdoing, they have no wish to be disturbed – they like it there.  They refuse to be shaken out of their comfortable sinfulness.  And that is the root cause of their condemnation – evil deeds, which they love.  There is a sense in which they condemn themselves.  
You see, it comes down to a choice – a choice of remaining in moral darkness with your evil deeds which you love, or choosing to come into the Light, where you turn from your sin.  Given the choice, many choose their sin.  Broad is the road that leads to destruction, because they like their sin.  And as a result, verse 20 – they hate the Light.  That is, they hate Jesus.
And we know that to be true.  No name so polarizes a room full of people than the name of Jesus.  Those who know Him as their Savior love Him – those who don’t, who have chosen their sin, hate Him.  Because His light exposes their deeds for what they are.
Verse 21 – but the one who practices the truth – as opposed to the darkness of evil deeds – comes into the Light.  He or she has no fear their deeds will be seen – for they are true and good.  Make no mistake about it – this is not a works salvation – that by doing good deeds they come into the light.  Rather, the Light exposes their good deeds as having been done by God through them.