Scripture: John 3:16
Sermon Series: John 3:16: God’s Love Language – Sermon 04

What’s the most memorable gift you remember receiving? Blogger Kelly Hampto asked that question on her Instagram account: Share the most meaningful gifts you’ve ever been given or ones you’ve thoughtfully put together for someone you love. There were some great ones:

• A cutting board engraved with a favorite recipe in my late mom’s handwriting.
• A set of cufflinks with the GPS coordinates of the location of our first kiss.
• A wallet from my husband filled with gift cards from all my favorite stores and services.
• Handwritten letters from my children.

Aren’t those great? As Christ-followers, we know that the greatest gift ever given is when God gave His Son for us. It was the gift of Jesus that was the final hurdle in C.S. Lewis’ coming to faith. What convinced Lewis to commit His life to Christ – the cross. Once he realized John 3:16 was true, that God really loved him and gave Jesus on the cross for his sins, this realization removed the final barrier, and Lewis put his faith in the Lord.

Many lost individuals have been drawn to God in the same way. That God gave pulls them in like a magnet. We all have an inner need to know that God loves us so much that He gave His Son for us.

God didn’t give money or gold. He didn’t give big houses. God owns all of that already. It wouldn’t have cost Him anything. No, God gave something so much greater. Because God so loved the world He gave His only Son. That cost Him everything. When John 3:16 says “that God gave,” it means He did something in love for us and did it voluntarily and freely. God gave His Son for us because He loves us.

Look at those words – lovedandgave. God’s giving grows out of His loving. Had God not first loved the world He wouldn’t have given. God doesn’t love us because Jesus died for us, as some mistakenly believe. No, it was the other way around. The Son of God died to redeem us because God already loved us. Many hold an erroneous idea that God is some cold, hard, and vengeful Judge, who looks down on sinners with nothing but harsh determination to punish them. They believe that it was the tender-hearted Jesus, in pity for us, who came between this wrathful Judge and us, so that the offended judge might feel compassion toward us. But it’s not true.

Christ redemptive work for us is proof of God the Father’s love, not the cause of it. Mark down the order – God loved, then He gave.

We’re in a seven-week study called God’s Love Language. Today we’re focusing on, THAT HE GAVE. If you’re taking notes:

1. God gave because the gift was needed. 

Why did God give Jesus? Why was a gift even needed? God created humanity to walk in perfect fellowship with Him in Eden as Adam and Eve did for a short time. God commanded them to obey and not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He told them, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Genesis 2:16-17).

It didn’t mean that they’d die instantly, although that could have happened. It meant that they’d die as a result. It wasn’t just physical death, but spiritual and eternal death – separation from God forever.

Because of their sin nature they passed that down to every descendant. Each of us is a sinner by nature and we all choose to sin. We’re estranged from God. The fellowship we were created to enjoy with God is broken. Isaiah 59:2, Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.

Humanity is separated from God by our sins. We need something that will reconcile us with Him. We know this inherently. It’s why throughout history, in every culture, there’s been some kind of “sacrifice” that’s offered to a god to appease the god and make people right with him.

In India, Hindus go down to the Ganges River to offer what they call “puja” — sacrifices of food and fruit — to their gods. When we were with Aaron in Taiwan, we learned they burn ghost money to their gods.

Trying to appease a god is common in religions around the globe. Even in the USA people think that if they go to church, light candles, get baptized, give money – because of those works, they’ll go to heaven.

The most common lie believed is that if I’m a good person, I’ll go to heaven. Remember the movie, Ghost, with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. Early in the movie, Sam is murdered and becomes a ghost. Near the end of the movie Molly has to let him go as he walks toward a bright light. The message is that Sam deserved to go to heaven because he’s a “good” person. No mention is made of Jesus or the cross. The only qualification Sam has is that he’s a nice guy and did good things.

Why is it that in virtually every culture, in every age, in every part of the world, you find people making costly sacrifices to their gods or trying to be good to earn brownie points with God? Because every single person knows in their hearts that we’re not right with God. There must be some gift, some sacrifice, in order to make us right with God.

Religion is an attempt to find a way to make a sacrifice that will “get us right” with God. It won’t work. Nothing we can do or give can make us right with God. It’s why God the Father gave His only Son. Gave has the force of “gave up.” God the Father gave up His Son, not only to the world but for the world. While God’s gift is free to us, it was very costly for God.

God’s gift meant great suffering in Jesus’ life.

Imagine leaving the perfection of heaven and experiencing the same needs as humanity. Jesus went from walking in heaven to not having a room available here on earth for Him. He had to eat, drink, sleep, and bathe, just like us. He went from God level existence to living like us. He faced the same trials, struggles and temptations we do. Imagine how that would feel. Think of what Jesus gave up to live on this planet.

At His birth, He had to flee to Egypt because King Herod tried to kill Him. He knew what it was like to be hungry. He went 40 days without food. He suffered incredible thirst. That’s why He asked the woman of Samaria for a drink, and nothing compared to his thirst on the cross.

He knew what it was to be so weary that He fell asleep in a boat in a raging storm that seasoned sailors were terrified of. He continually faced slander, gossip and false accusations. His own family didn’t understand Him and thought He was some wacko.

He suffered loneliness. He was in the world but the world, His creation, didn’t know Him. He was alone in life and in death.

The crowds that followed Him to see His miracles when He asked them for commitment, dropped him like a hot potato. He suffered the stress of temptation from Satan. He suffered the horror of anticipation. He knew He was headed to the cross. He suffered the pain of rejection. A disciple sold Him out for 30 pieces of silver and a kiss, the vilest kiss ever. He came to rescue humanity but was rejected and despised. Jesus suffered in His life.

God’s gift meant great suffering in Jesus’ death.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, as He was praying, His extreme stress caused Him to sweat blood. When He was arrested, all of His friends, abandoned Him. Have you ever felt abandoned by a friend? Jesus was abandoned by all of His.

The soldiers and rabble marched Jesus into Jerusalem in the darkness. During the next hours, He endured six trials, three religious and three civil – all illegal. During those trials, He was mocked, slapped, and punched, over and over, but Jesus never fought back. Although He could have called down an army of angels to wipe them all out, He just took every punch, every slap, and every false accusation. Our Lord was willing to do whatever it took.

After He was taken to the Roman governor, Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified. Then, the real brutality began. Roman soldiers—experts at torture and death—stripped Him of His clothes. Then, they beat Him with a whip that would have had anywhere from three to twelve strands of leather. Metal balls were woven into the leather. At the end of each strand were pieces of broken glass, nails, or twisted metal, designed to grab flesh and rip it.

As He was beaten, chunks of skin and muscle were ripped away. By the time the soldiers were done, His back, buttocks and legs were bloody, mangled ribbons of flesh. This beating was nicknamed “the half death,” because half of those who received it died.

The soldiers put a purple robe on Him, twisted together a crown of thorns, with thorns several inches long—and beat it into His skull with a rod, which they also used to batter His face. They marched Him off to Golgotha, just outside Jerusalem. Here they stripped Him of all His clothes, threw Him down on a wooden cross, stretched out His hands, took a spike, and hammered it into each wrist. Imagine the pain of each blow, as the hammer came down, driving the nail deeper into His wrists.

Why His wrists? Because the weight of His body, once lifted up on the cross, would tear His hands if the nail was put through His palm. Only the place where the bones of the wrist come together could support His weight hanging by a spike. The Jews considered wrists as a part of the hands. Next, the soldiers crossed His feet and drove a spike nail through them.

Then, the soldiers lifted the cross up and dropped it into a hole. It was then, according to Psalm 22:14, all of His bones came out of joint. There Jesus hung, naked, bleeding and dying, before the very ones He’d created.

To breathe on the cross was a huge effort. He had to push up against the spikes to get air, scraping His bloody back against the wooden cross. The pain was excruciating. But that wasn’t His greatest suffering.

God’s gift meant great suffering of God’s judgement.

Finally, after six hours of tortured breathing, the end was near. Jesus looked up to Heaven and said, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani which means, My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34). In that moment, Jesus was enduring the ultimate agony. In that moment, there was a tremor in the Trinity, as God the Father turned His back on His Son and poured out His wrath, His justice for all of the sin of humanity—on Jesus. 

The Bible mentions judgement over 600 times. Adam and Eve were judged for disobeying God. In the days of Noah, the world was so evil it was judged by a flood. The Egyptians were judged because they enslaved Israel and blew off God when He told them to let Israel go. But those were minor.

The ultimate judgement was when God’s Son took the judgment for all of our sins. As Jesus took His last breath, He said three words that changed the course of history, “It is finished.” The sins of humanity were paid for by the gift of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29).

God gave Jesus so He could be just in forgiving us. For God to be just someone had to pay the penalty for sin. It’s why God gave His only Son.

[Jesus] Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). Our sins were transferred to Jesus. They were imputed to Him—counted as His. The Old Testament helps us understand this. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest laid his hands on a goat and confessed the sins of Israel. And Aaron (the High Priest) shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:21). Guilt would be transferred to that sacrificial goat and taken away. Jesus did that when He died. He took our sin and guilt upon Himself.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). God Himself is active in His Son’s death on the cross. God is taking the initiative. God made Him to be sin for us. Jesus took all the judgement for the world.

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Ransom means paying a price. In His death, Jesus paid the price to set people free. Free from what? Free from the judgment of God that was coming to all of us on account of our sin.

God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood (Romans 3:25). In the Old Testament God provided sacrifices offered by the priest on behalf of the people. The sacrificed animal died instead of the people. It was to help us understand what happened in Jesus’ death. Notice how this sacrifice becomes effective. Through faith in His blood, God gave Jesus to take our judgement so we could be forgiven.  

God’s gift meant great suffering for God the Father.

One of worst experiences that I’ve gone through as a father was when Ben had his first seizure when he was two. To rule out spinal meningitis, the doctor did a spinal tap which is very painful. Ben’s screams of pain were so heartbreaking that I had to walk down the hall. I couldn’t handle it.

Every parent would sacrifice themselves for their child. Can you imagine how broken the heart of God the Father was as Jesus not only suffered horrible physical pain, but also spiritual pain for the sins of the entire world? The worst death a parent ever experiences is the death of their own child.

We must remember when we say God so loved the world that God so loved His Son. God’s love for His Son was much greater than His love for the world, yet God the Father gave up His Son because He loved us, our world.

The Son suffered as He was tortured by cruel people. God the Father suffered as the One who gave up His Son for an evil world. In the sacrifice of the Son, the Father suffered loss beyond words. In the death of the Son, death came upon God the Father as He suffered the death of His Son. The Fatherlessness of the Son is matched by the Sonlessness of the Father.

2. God gave to provide what no one else could. 

Last week was the 4^th anniversary of the war in Ukraine. 1.8 million soldiers have been killed, wounded or are missing on both sides. 15,000 civilians have died in Ukraine since the invasion, though that’s likely an underestimate. More than 40,600 civilians have been injured and nearly 800 children killed. Yet this generation is oddly silent about sin and evil. Late night talk shows don’t discuss humanities failures. Barbarism is alive and well on planet Earth. There is only one hope – God gave Jesus to die for our sins.

If anyone measures their life against the 10 Commandments, they’ll quickly see that they’re a total failure. We’ve all stolen. We’ve all lied. We’ve all lusted. We’ve all coveted it. We’ve all hated, which is murder in our heart.

Acts 4:12 echoes with, And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Jesus is our only hope. He took our place and took our hell so we can go to heaven one day and live heavenly now. His paying the penalty for our sin was the only way God could be just and justify us. Romans 1:26, So that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God gave the gift we could never provide for ourselves.

Picture this. God is on His throne. You and I are on Earth. Between you and heaven is Christ on the cross. Our sins, the sins of the world, have been placed on Jesus. God who punishes sin releases His rightful wrath on our sins and Jesus receives the blow. Since Christ is between you and God, you don’t. Sin is punished, but you’re safe – safe in the shadow of the cross.

A Chinese Christian understood this. Before her baptism, her pastor asked a question to ensure she understood the meaning of the cross. Did Jesus have any sin? he asked. Yes, she replied. Troubled, the pastor repeated the question. He had sin, she answered positively. The pastor was going to correct her, but she insisted, Jesus had my sin. In His Son, God gave what no one else could.

3. God gave a gift that must be personally accepted. 

A gift must be accepted or it’s not yours. God gave the gift, but have you accepted it?

The gospel is not a list of things you do for God. The gospel or good news is what God did for you. The gospel message is: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3). The gospel is that we’re all sinners, none of our religious works or sacrifices can make us right with God. The good news of the gospel is that God loved us so He provided the sacrifice we needed in His Son, so that whoever trusts in Him will be saved.

Have you ever received a gift so big or unexpected that your first thought was, “I didn’t get them anything in return”? You’re not alone. Many feel the pressure of reciprocating, the idea that we must give back when we receive something. But what if I told you that the most important gift of all that God gave, salvation, isn’t something you can ever earn or repay? It’s a gift freely given by God that’s yours to receive, but you must personally accept it. Salvation is a gift, not a transaction. It’s about receiving, not earning.

So, what will you do to embrace this truth? Will you simply receive God’s gift? If you haven’t yet accepted this gift, what’s holding you back?

Conclusion

John Griffith was in his early twenties, newly married and full of juice. Along with his lovely wife, he’d been blessed with a beautiful baby. They were living the American dream. But then 1929 hit, the Great Crash. It devastated John’s dreams. The winds that howled through Oklahoma were symbolic of the gale force that swept away his dreams. Brokenhearted, John packed up his few possessions with his wife and little son, and headed East in an old Ford Model A. They made their way to the edge of the Mississippi River and found a job managing one of the great railroad bridges there.

Day after day, John sat in the control room, directing the enormous gears of the immense bridge over the Mississippi. He’d look out wistfully as bulky barges and huge ships sailed under his elevated bridge. He looked on sadly as those ships carried with them his shattered dreams of far-off places and exotic destinations.

It wasn’t until 1937 that a new dream was born in John’s heart. His young son was now eight and John began to catch a vision of a new life, a life in which Greg, his son, would work side by side with him. The first day of this new life dawned and brought new hope and fresh purpose. Excitedly, they packed their lunches, heading off towards the immense bridge.

Greg looked on in wide-eyed amazement as his dad pressed down the big lever that raised and lowered the huge bridge. As he watched, he thought that his father must surely be the greatest man alive. He marveled that his dad could single handedly control the movements of this huge structure. Before they knew it, noon arrived. John had just elevated the bridge to let some scheduled ships pass through. Taking his son by the hand, they headed off for lunch.

As they ate, John told his son, Greg, about the marvelous destinations of the ships that glided below them. He shared story after story, Greg hanging on every word. Suddenly, in the midst of telling a tale about when the river had overflowed its banks, they were both startled back to reality by the shrieking whistle of a distant train. Looking at his watch in disbelief, John saw it was already 1:07. Immediately, he remembered that the bridge was still raised. The Memphis Express would be coming over the bridge in minutes.

In the calmest tone he could muster, John instructed Greg, “Stay put.” Quickly, he leapt to his feet and jumped on the catwalk. As the precious seconds flew by, he ran as fast as he could to the ladder for the control house. Once in, he searched the river to make sure no ships were in sight. Then, as he’d been trained to do, he looked straight down beneath the bridge to make certain nothing was below. As his eyes looked downward, John saw something so horrifying that his heart froze. There, below him in the massive gearbox that housed the colossal gears that moved the gigantic bridge, was his son, Greg.

Apparently Greg tried to follow his dad but had fallen off the catwalk. He was wedged between the teeth of two main cogs in the gear box. Though he appeared to be conscious, John could see his son’s leg was bleeding. Then a horrifying thought flashed through his mind – lowering the bridge would mean killing his son.

Panicked, his mind probed in every direction, frantically searching for any solution. But he realized that none of them would work. It was futile! Instantly he knew there just wasn’t enough time. Terror spread over his face. His agonized mind considered the 400 people moving closer and closer to the raised bridge. Soon the train would come roaring out of the trees at tremendous speed, but this was his son…his only son…his pride…his joy…his life. And John knew in a moment there was only one thing he could do, and that he’d have to do it. So, burying his face under his left arm, he plunged down the lever. The screams of his son were quickly drowned out by the relentless sound of the bridge as it ground open slowly into position. With only seconds to spare, the Memphis Express—with its 400 passengers—roared out of the trees and across the mighty bridge.

John Griffith lifted his tear-stained face and looked into the windows of the passing train. A businessman was reading his newspaper. The train conductor was glancing nonchalantly at his pocket watch. Ladies were sipping their afternoon tea in the dining cars. A small boy, looking strangely like his own son, pushed a spoon into a dish of ice cream. Many of the passengers seemed to be engaged in idle conversation or careless laughter. No one even looked his way. No one even cast a glance at the giant gear box that housed the mangled bloody remains of his son, his hopes and his dreams.

In anguish John pounded the glass in the control room. He cried out What’s the matter with you people? Don’t you know? Don’t you care? Don’t you know I sacrificed my son for you? What’s wrong with you?

But no one answered. No one heard. No one even looked. Not one of them seemed to care. Then, as suddenly as it had happened, it was over. The train disappeared moving rapidly across the bridge and out over the horizon.

My friend, that’s just a faint glimpse of what God the Father did when He gave, sacrificing His only Son to atone for the sins of the world.

Unlike the Memphis Express, however, an express train that caught John Griffith by surprise, God the Father willingly gave His Son because of His great love for us. God the Father chose to sacrifice His Son so that we could  be forgiven. Jesus willingly gave and sacrificed His life for all of our sins.

Do you know? Do you care? Have you committed your life to Christ? Have you accepted God’s free gift of salvation?

  For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.