John 3:16 and more

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17 ESV).

Why did Jesus come into the world?

Jesus came to give life, forever. We're going to dig into this pretty hard-core in a few minutes

How many children does God have?

This is kind of a trick question. . .his one and only son, Jesus, but then kajillion a because everyone who believes is a son and daughter.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3:1 ESV)

How is Jesus coming into the world different from a normal baby?

When you came into existence, it's because your mom and dad got together, some cells started multiplying, and though no person existed, two months later, there is a little heartbeat. We humans were made pretty much out of nothing.

Jesus' birth was different. God SENT his son. Jesus already existed! Somehow or another, through the Holy Spirit, the King of the Universe crammed himself into a few rapidly-multiplying cells in Mary's uterus. But Jesus already was, he is and always will be. "Before Abraham was, I am."

What isn't Jesus job on earth?

To condemn the world.

Why not?

Because the world is already condemned! The wages of sin is already death.

Imagine a crazy man with a gun walks into a crowded room, screaming, "I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill all of you!!!" Only the crowded room is the morgue. . .it is already full of dead people. The threat is worthless.

So with Jesus, what would be the point if showing up and berating a bunch of dead people. We have no idea of our true state, but it's painfully obvious to our creator, especially when he is standing face to face with us. We are dead, but Jesus has come to raise Lazarus, to raise himself, and to raise us. Just as the snakebit Israelites were already condemned, so are we. Our only hope to live is to look at the man on the cross.

Does God send people to hell?

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18 ESV)

God sends us to heaven and we send ourselves to hell, but there is more to it than this. Look at this story by Chad Bird:

Heaven for Atheists - Chad Bird

An atheist asked his Christian friend, “What’s so great about heaven?”

“Well,” he said, “I don’t know where to start, since everything’s great about heaven. It’s beautiful, to begin with. Streets of gold and pearly gates. Just takes your breath away. And there won’t be any hospitals or morgues there because, once we get into heaven, we’re all done getting sick and dying. You also get to be reunited with folks who’ve died, like your parents and grandparents and old friends. I can’t wait for that. And get this, even if there’s somebody there you didn’t really get along with in this life, no worries, because everybody is fine with everybody else in heaven. And of course, there’s the angels, and what’s there not to like about angels? There’s simply nothing but beauty and goodness and happiness there.”

The atheist mulled this over for a few seconds and said, “You know, that does all sound great. In fact, for one important reason, it sounds like just the place I’d like to be.”

The Christian, surprised, asked, “Really, why’s that?”

The atheist said, “You didn’t mention God. Now that’s my kind of heaven.”

Peel back the outward layers of churchiness, stick a microphone to heart of hearts of Christians, and ask, ”Why do you really want to go to heaven?” The answer, “to be with Jesus” will, I suspect, be low on the list, if it makes the cut at all. Give most people a choice between being with God in a one-room shack beside a cornfield in Iowa or and being without God in a mansion beside the beach on an island paradise, and the majority would be packing shorts and bikinis for the hereafter. It’s all about the destination, baby. Folks are dying to get there, whether God’s in heaven or not. So if you ever wonder just how much Christ is really in your Christianity, ask yourself whether being with him is the principle, all-embracing reason you desire to be in heaven. If it’s not, let’s think about why.

A few years ago, when I was going through a separation that led finally to divorce, I was also separated from my two children by a thousand miles. On my daughter’s birthday I wasn’t there. Months went by between visits. I would talk to them on the phone, but my son, who was only six, wasn’t much of a talker. And even though my daughter and I would speak, sometimes our conversations seemed only to make the separation more tortuous. I wanted to talk to my children face-to-face, to be with them, to touch them. The distance was emotionally debilitating. Choose whatever verb you wish—I craved, yearned, longed, ached, thirsted, hungered—to be with my son, my daughter, for they were all I had to live for. They were my life.

There’s a verse in the book of Psalms where David says, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living, God! When shall I come and appear before God?” (42:1-2). The closest I’ve ever come to experiencing an ache as intense as David’s was when I couldn’t be with the two people in the world that meant the most to me, that were my world. Love that intense creates a thirst that can only be quenched by being with the one you love. There are no substitutes.

To the extent that we love Jesus in this life, to that same extent we long to be with him in the life to come. It’s as simple as that. We don’t miss people we don’t love. Nor do we truly love people we don’t miss. The reason that anyone would choose a heaven without Jesus, or happiness without Jesus, or healing without Jesus, is because he doesn’t mean that much to them to begin with. He may be useful as a divine tool, if you will, to manipulate into getting what we want, when we want it. We become God-users. We use him to get into heaven, where what we really want awaits us: a life free from all the crap we have to put up with here, and full of all the stuff we think will make us happy here on earth. We never stop to consider that we fantasize about a heaven where atheists will be just as at home walking down those golden streets as anyone, for Jesus has become a disposable Lord.

A few Sundays ago, we were singing a song in church that I’ve sung a thousand times. But for the first time, I truly heard these lines:

Earth has no pleasure I would share,

Yea, heav’n itself were void and bare

If Thou, Lord, were not near me.

As happens so often, I realized that the words spoken by my mouth did not match the thoughts whispered by my heart. Would heaven really be “void and bare” to me if Jesus were not “near me”? Do I honestly have “no pleasure” in the pleasures of earth if the Lord is not “near me”? I may have been singing the hymn with gusto, but not honesty. The reason is found in the opening line of the hymn: “Lord, Thee I love with all my heart,” but, even on my best days, were I to sing honestly, I would say, “Lord, Thee I love with half my heart. The world has claimed the other part.”

David depicted his thirst for God as a deer panting for streams of water. I know what it’s like to thirst for the presence of a person I love, but I’m still learning what it means for my soul to crave God. Show me what that means, Lord. Surround my Jericho heart and shout heaven’s shout, that the walls may come tumbling down. Everything that stands in the way of a life wholly devoted to you, raze and replace. Create a clean heart in me—clean of pleasures that bring you pain, clean of idols that make you jealous, clean of desires that you desire not. And in this clean heart, teach me true love for you, thankfulness for your nearness to me on earth, but a thirst for your full presence in heaven—a heaven that is truly heaven for only one reason: because you are there.

Pretty amazing stuff. . .I'm blown away by the notion of Heaven is being with God. That's it, being in his presence, being WITH Him. Heaven without God is not heaven. The flip-side is what we have in our passage from John, the picture of condemnation.

Hell is not just burning fire and eternal torment. Condemnation is separation from God. Life is in Jesus, that's the only place. Death, we know intimately: we are well acquainted with pain, grief, suffering, hurt. . .death surrounds us. God sent his only son into the world, not to condemn it, but to offer life. He did not come to rub salt in our wounds. He did not come to kick us while we are down. He did not tell A. J. McCarron to throw touchdown passes against us when our team is already losing 46-3. He came to give us life!

What would the world think of this?

The world thinks sin fun, and Jesus is coming to ruin it. Christians are judgemental jerks who condemn us all the time. They see Christ as being like one of the guys from Westboro baptist church, mean, confrontational, inappropriate, and hurtful. They don't in a million years see Jesus being the one island of life in an ocean-full of death.

Do you know what prayer is? Prayer is like a thirsty man walking up to a desert fortress, begging for water. The owner of the fortress doesn't just give him a sip, he dumps buckets of water to cool him off, hands him a 64 ounce blue powerade, and asks him to come inside and rest in the shade. Jesus didn't come to give us just a little sip of life, he turns on the firehose and soaks us with life. I have come that you might have life and have it to the full! (John 10:10). Prayer, fellowship with God, is literally heaven on earth.

Why do you pray and go to church and do Christian stuff?

You are not an elephant! 

 Elephants don't forget, but you forget.

Prayer is a little bit of heaven, and separation from God is hell. . .and that starts not when we die, but when we are born.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:18-21 ESV).

Who judges us?

We pretty much judge ourselves, right? Either we love Christ or we hate him. Remember our desert fortress. . .we either accept the drink and shower or we throw sand in the owner's face. Or like in Plato's allegory of the cave, we can stay enthralled with shadows in the dark or we can walk out into the daylight and experience real life. Jesus isn't the one condemning or judging. . .we are the ones doing that.

And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:26-30 ESV)

We talked about John a good bit a while ago, but this is a cool display of his character. What is John talking about with the groom?

My joy is now complete! John says his job is to be a nobody. Who cares about John, look at Jesus. He must increase, I must decrease.

I had a friend in college, if you asked Tyler what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say, "a donkey." "I want to carry Jesus around. No one knows the donkey's name, where it lives, or anything about it. The only reason the donkey is famous is because it carried Jesus into Jerusalem.

John was happy to be a donkey. . .he knew that heaven was not fame or streets of gold. Heaven is knowing and praising Jesus, and having seen him face to face, John's joy is complete. Happier than a witch in a broom factory and yes, happier than a camel on hump day!

He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:31-36 ESV)

Today you have eternal life, today you believe. Today, right this second, the Father loves you because he loves Jesus and Jesus died in your place. Drink from the fire-hose, He gives his spirit without measure!