God's Love for Humanity

God’s Love for Humanity

—Part 6: John 3:16–36

Andrew Fountain – Oct 20, 2019

Click on this slide and then press the spacebar to advance slides: ➜ (or swipe on a touch screen)

Goal:

To fully grasp the depth and richness of John 3:16

The story so far…

The extraordinary poem hidden in the first 18 verses of John [1:1–18]
- In our modern, organized minds, we want the truth laid out in 7 simple steps. But what the Bible often gives us is a Michelangelo painting
Why the very first believers were so drawn to Jesus [1:19–51]
- Before any miracles—what was it?
- Personal testimony is so powerful
- Jesus saw right into their very being, and called out something new and amazing.
  They felt deeply seen and deeply loved!
A Different Take on turning Water into Wine [2:1–11]
- It was really about Mary’s faith
- Jesus is deliberatedly ambiguous so as to really stretch her faith
- But she comes through shining, with complete trust, and her faith triggers the start of Jesus’ miracles
- Sometimes God stretches us, to give us the opportunity to shine.
- Sometimes God’s ways can be hard to understand—give your problems to him in total trust, not demanding, but believing he is good!
Anger and Love in the Temple
- It’s all about the experience of coming into God’s presence
- Something that should have been so positive had been polluted, which made Jesus extremely angry
- But ultimately he would redefine our experience of God’s presence
- He would create a new temple, starting with himself, and adding us
- We become the very dwelling place of God
Born from above
- We all know the verse “you must be born again”
  - But we saw that “born again” as a translation does not do justice to Jesus’s words
  - A fuller translation is “born from above”, which means so much more!
- Jesus challenged Nicodemus to think outside his religious box, so locked into this present world
- In a similar way he challenges us, not to live ordinary lives limited by the expectations of this world,
  - but to embrace the amazing reality of the age to come, now in the present.
- We define our own limitations
  - Jesus still wants to blow away your categories, your framework for life

God’s Love for Humanity

The flow of the passage
Focus in on 16–21
How this speaks into our lives

John 1

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light,
that all might believe through him.
He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
John bore witness about him, and cried out,
“This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”

—26. The story starts in an odd way:
- We are not told who it was, or what it was about, but just “ceremonial washing”
- Remember the water turned into wine? The water pots originally were for “ceremonial washing” —exactly the same word
  - This is the Jesus who upset the ceremonies in the Temple, and said his body would replace the temple
- I think there is a growing sense of disturbance at what Jesus is saying
- But here is the problem: “everyone is flocking to him”
- We can accept you John, because although you are challenging our sin, you are not turning the world upside down
  - John was the last of the O.T. prophets
—30. The friend of the bridegroom
- These are beautiful words. The last words of John the Baptist recorded in John’s gospel
- I think the whole point of them is the context: John the B. is the old order, the Old covenant
  - And rather than clinging to the old, they should see it as a friend of the bridegroom
  - The whole purpose of Moses was to point to Jesus
  - The whole purpose of sacrificing lambs was to point to the true sacrifice
  - The whold of the Old Testament is the “friend of the bridegroom”
- Don’t cling to the old “ceremonial washing” when you have the new
- Yesterday I was at an event that was in a building used by an Anglican church
  - There were pictures of their ceremonies, all the priests dressed up for elaborate rituals
  - They probably love Jesus, but we are in an age where reality has replaced the ritual
  - We are only given two very simple symbols by Jesus: breaking bread, and baptism
    - That is because the bridegroom has come, and we can enjoy him directly.
  - We, God’s people, are the bride of Jesus
  - The wedding will be at his return, but we can already get to know the bridegroom
—33 back to teaching
- I don’t think it is John the Baptist speaking here because we are back to using John’s wording, which
- Jesus’ authority to clear away the old law (the earthly things) and replace them with himself
—35. One of the Jewish writings from the time, that we have discovered, talks about God measuring out the Spirit to the prophets
- They were all given a limited measure.
Neatly rounds off the section.
- Perfectly matches v.16–18
- As we have seen, John is usually very intentional about marking the start and end of his stories
- So that’s why I had to take a larger chunk today.

God’s Love for Humanity

The flow of the passage
Focus in on 16–21
1. “condemned already”??
2. “…this is how much…”
How this speaks into our lives

God’s Love for Humanity

The flow of the passage
Focus in on 16–21
1. “condemned already”??
2. “…this is how much…”
How this speaks into our lives

3. How this speaks into our lives

God’s heart for you is love
- —he does not want to condemn you!
- —how will you respond?
The one who practices the truth comes to the light
- —how will you respond?

Imagine you are clinging to the Titanic as it is going down
- and a big rowing boat appears, with a man shouting “let go of that and trust us or you will die”
- You don’t day “that’s not a nice man—very bossy and condemning” —he has risked his life!
- The warnings in these verses are not to put you down, but to describe reality!
If you’re a follower of Jesus
20–21 —note it is not balanced—the good is done by God. The point is not being good, but choice to be washed
- I was praying to Jesus about this passage and asking what he had for me personally in them
- I felt drawn to v.20–21
- I had the impression of Jesus saying “Andrew, would you let me shine my light into you right now?”
  - I agreed, and became aware of a couple of things that were not very nice inside
- I decided to label them as wrong, and ban them.
  - It was a surprising and interesting process.
- I am going to challenge all of us to do that right now