WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:32.159 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.359 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:07.759 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. 00:01:09.759 --> 00:01:19.519 And please bow your heads in prayer. Father, we ask that you would continue to be very kind to us, 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:29.519 that if there are those present or listening who have not yet come to believe your words in John 3 16, 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:38.079 that they will come, Father, that they will turn and believe in Christ. And Father, for us who have 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:46.079 believed in Christ, we ask in your kindness that you would engrave the words of John 3 16 on our hearts 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:55.840 and incline us to live in light of John 3 16 every day. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:58.640 Saviour. Amen. Please be seated. 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:09.280 So we're going to begin with something a little bit different and odd. 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:14.800 Claire, if you could begin to put up the comfortable words, that would be very handy. 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:21.759 There's this part of the service that most people aren't aware of. And if you're curious a little bit 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:27.599 about what Anglican roots are like, and when the Anglican Church got formed, got reformed out of 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:33.199 the Church of England, what was at the heart of it? In some ways, if you want to understand what was at 00:02:33.199 --> 00:02:38.000 the heart of the English Reformation is this prayer that if you follow morning and evening prayer, you 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:44.239 would say it five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12 times a day, glory be to the Father and to the Son and 00:02:44.239 --> 00:02:48.479 to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end on men. 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:52.719 And that expresses the heart of the English Reformation in the Anglican way. 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:59.359 But the communion service, what the reformers did is that right after they had the invitation to 00:02:59.359 --> 00:03:05.599 confess your sins, so you have the Bible, you have the songs and all of that, and the Bible read, 00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:10.399 and you have a sermon, and then there's an invitation to confess your sins. You confess your sins. 00:03:11.359 --> 00:03:17.439 The presbyter prays that people will know God's grace and forgiveness. 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:22.479 And then there's these things called the comfortable words. And after the comfortable 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:27.599 words, we go into the prayer of humble access and then communion. And we don't do that very often 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:33.039 here at our 10 o'clock service. But I mention all of this because what I'm going to be doing this 00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:37.599 Sunday, next Sunday, and the Sunday after is every Sunday I'm going to preach on one of the three 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:41.919 comfortable words. There's four of them. I'm going to preach every Sunday on the first one, 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:46.319 and this Sunday is first and second, next Sunday the first and the third, and the Sunday after that, 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:51.439 Easter Sunday, the first and the fourth. And what I'd like us to do is just to sort of get 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:58.239 into understanding them. So we're going to recite them in the eight o'clock service. I just say it, but here 00:03:58.239 --> 00:04:01.599 I'd like to do it as a responsive reading. So if it's up there, let's begin. 00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:09.840 Hear what comfortable words our Savior Christ says unto all that truly turn to him. Come unto me, 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:14.240 all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:28.480 Hear also what St. Paul says. 00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:41.120 Hear what St. Paul says. 00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:48.960 If any of us sins have you had it with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the 00:04:48.960 --> 00:04:50.960 propitiation for our sins. 00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:56.799 And this next part is just as important to respond to the comfortable words. I say, lift up your hearts. 00:04:56.799 --> 00:04:59.039 We lift them up to the Lord. 00:04:59.039 --> 00:05:02.079 And I say, let us give thanks unto our Lord God. 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:04.879 It is me, and Christ is up to you. 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:10.879 And if you're wondering what the word meat is there, it's a very old-fashioned word. It means that at the 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:19.359 level of creation and the level of the new creation, it fits. It's right. It's properly ordered. That's what 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:25.920 meat means. So today, I'm going to preach on John 3 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:31.840 begotten Son to the end that all that believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. And one of 00:05:31.840 --> 00:05:36.319 the things is, if you don't already have that text memorized, I hope by the end of the service, you've 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:44.639 begun to have it memorized. And my sermon's going to begin this week by sharing three stories. Now, 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:48.719 what you need to understand, and this is one of the things you can pray for me as I'm trying to 00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:55.279 you know, open the Bible on Sunday morning and preach and teach from the Bible, explaining what 00:05:55.279 --> 00:06:00.159 God's Word written has said. I mean, one of the things that you can pray for me is, and this is 00:06:00.159 --> 00:06:04.000 going to be one of the things towards the end of the sermon, I hope I remember to say it, is that we 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:11.199 are to understand ourselves as heralds. Not a person by the name of Harold, but heralds with an E. 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:16.879 A herald is a person who heard a message from the king and then proclaims the king's message. 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:23.120 H-E-R-A-L-D. And that's in a sense what all Christians are to be, and I'll hopefully talk 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:28.639 about at the end of the sermon. And what my job is on a Sunday morning is I am to listen to a message 00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:34.079 from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our blessed Savior, the friend of sinners, the great 00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:39.759 Redeemer, and I am to try to listen to his Word carefully so that I understand what it says, 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:44.719 and then I proclaim it to you like a herald. That's in a sense what the minister's job is 00:06:44.719 --> 00:06:49.839 on a Sunday morning. And so when I'm preparing for my sermon, the first thing I do is Monday morning, 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:55.360 most Monday mornings, I don't look at commentaries, I don't look at books or videos or anything else 00:06:55.360 --> 00:07:00.240 to help me get insights about the text. I just spend some time in prayer with the text itself. 00:07:01.199 --> 00:07:05.199 That's what I do on Monday morning. I want to get it, in a sense, try to get it really into my head. 00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:10.959 I look at what goes before, I look at what happens after, and then I just, and obviously this week, 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:15.839 because it's just one verse, but it's a matter of prayerfully meditating and contemplating upon the 00:07:15.839 --> 00:07:20.319 text, making sure that I'm going to have it in context, and then the rest of the next days, 00:07:20.319 --> 00:07:25.599 you know, I work on commentaries and other types of resources. And then the other thing I do is that 00:07:25.599 --> 00:07:31.599 I try to have my preaching text part of my devotions every day, so I read the text every day and it's 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:36.879 present in my mind, because I want to have the text in my mind to start to form me, and that comes to my 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:42.560 first story. And this is not a story that shows how wise I am, it's a story that shows that I am a sinner, 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:49.360 and I need prayer from you guys, because this is the story. So John, so on Sunday, on Monday morning, 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:55.120 I spent an hour or so meditating upon, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:59.680 whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That's what I've meditated upon for an hour. 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:05.840 Around four o'clock or so that Monday afternoon, I confessed that I was hungry, I hadn't brought 00:08:05.840 --> 00:08:10.800 enough lunch, and I've discovered that I can go to the dollar store in Centertown and buy a small bag 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:17.360 of chips for 75 cents, only 200 calories. And I know it's not healthy, I probably should go to the metro 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:24.000 and get fruit or something like that, but I go to the dollar store to buy some potato chips. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:30.879 And as I'm standing in line, there's this person comes around the side, and even from about eight 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:36.559 feet away, I can smell him. And he doesn't smell good. In fact, he smells absolutely terrible. 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:42.720 And he smells really, really bad, and he comes around, and he comes and lines up right behind me. 00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:47.440 And in fact, not only does he line up behind me, and I can really smell him, he really stinks, 00:08:48.080 --> 00:08:52.400 but he sort of almost invades my body space as well. He gets really close behind me. 00:08:53.200 --> 00:09:01.760 And that's not just that he smells. He has a loud, obnoxious voice, and he felt like he had to comment, 00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:07.280 and everything going on in the store with a loud, obnoxious voice. And he's right behind me. 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:15.759 And what goes through my mind is this. How could anyone love someone like that? 00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:22.240 I'm not making that up. That's went through my mind. Maybe it's because on one hand, 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:28.399 God's Word wanted to convict me of sin. Remember, I've been meditating upon that. It's not normally 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:33.120 something I would think about somebody else. But on one hand, that's what I start to think. How could 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:39.200 anyone love someone like that? Now, I didn't want to look at the fellow because I didn't want to become 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:46.399 the center of his loud, obnoxious comments. But I did glance over, and I noticed then that he had 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:51.919 a girlfriend or a wife. I didn't look at ring fingers. But you could tell from the body language 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:57.919 that he, in fact, did have someone who loved him. And in my spirit, I was deeply rebuked. 00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:01.199 I was deeply rebuked. 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:12.399 Because I realized that, what is it the Bible text says? For God so loved the world that he gave his 00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:16.959 only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:24.560 That means that God offers his Son out of love for every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve without 00:10:24.560 --> 00:10:33.040 respect. That there is no person so far gone that Christ did not love them and die for them out of 00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:39.840 love. Now, I'll probably return to this again towards the end of the sermon, but there's two other stories 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:46.480 stories that helped me to understand the text this week. And I ended up thinking they were good to 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:52.320 share with the congregation. The next one is quite, quite, quite different. I've shared with you before 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:58.240 that I have about six different people who, between the six of them, all people who are outside the 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:03.840 Christian faith, who sometime on Friday or Saturday, and occasionally on a Monday, but they'll ask me, 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:06.960 well, what are you preaching on? Like on Friday or Saturday, they say, what are you going to preach on 00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:12.320 tomorrow? Just making conversation all outside the Christian faith. And so that happened to me this 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:17.519 Saturday morning. And by the way, for this story in the next, if by chance I'm going to call them Bob 00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:23.680 and Andy, and if Bob and Andy happen to be watching, a shout out to you. You're really great guys. And 00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:28.240 whenever you ask me a question about what I'm going to preach on, it is tremendously helpful for me. 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:34.240 I hope it's helpful for you, but it's very helpful for me to be asked this question by somebody outside 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:39.120 the Christian faith. What are you going to preach on on Sunday morning? So I got asked this question 00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:47.759 yesterday morning while I'm in a coffee shop working on my sermon. And I said to him, well, 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:54.799 that's interesting that you ask. There's some words of, I sort of put my hands back like that, 00:11:54.799 --> 00:12:01.519 leaned back. I said, there's some words of Jesus that in one sentence, basically Jesus summarizes 00:12:01.519 --> 00:12:07.679 beautifully what his entire life and ministry is all about. And this one sentence just doesn't 00:12:07.679 --> 00:12:11.919 only describe what Jesus's whole life and ministry is all about. It describes what the whole Bible is 00:12:11.919 --> 00:12:19.600 all about. And I said, it is for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:29.920 in him should not perish but have eternal life. And he went, oh. And he said, you know, don't you think 00:12:29.920 --> 00:12:36.639 all religions teach that God is love and loves the world? That's what he said to me. He hadn't heard 00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:40.960 the part about the son or perishing, or maybe he did. He didn't want to ask me about that. But he said, 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:51.120 don't all religions teach something like that? So I said to him, he sort of leaned down on the 00:12:51.120 --> 00:12:55.600 counter with his coffee and because he was going to be going out for a walk. And I said to him, well, 00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:00.960 actually, you know, that's actually not true. I think it's really only Christianity that can truly 00:13:00.960 --> 00:13:05.519 say that God is love. And he said, well, I don't think that's the case. I think that would be something 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:10.800 that all religions say. And I said, well, they might all say that. But if you think about it for a second, 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:16.959 to love, you need to have another. You need to have another person. There has to be an other to love. 00:13:18.079 --> 00:13:25.439 And so for those who follow Islam, Allah cannot really be, Allah cannot be a God of love. 00:13:26.719 --> 00:13:34.799 Because there is no one for Allah to love until he creates. And if he has to create to love, 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:40.000 that's like a type of needy love, which most of us recognize isn't real love. 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:46.159 So you can't really say that Allah is love because there's no other for him to love until he creates. 00:13:47.039 --> 00:13:52.399 And I said, for our friends who come from, who like the more Eastern type of religions, 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:58.719 forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, they have the same problem. I said, like, if you think, you know what, 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:06.080 at a very deep or high level of those religions, they believe that like all is God, or God is one, 00:14:06.080 --> 00:14:11.600 or God is in all. But there's just really this oneness. And if there's this oneness, 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:16.000 there can't really be love. There has to be others to love. And it's only in Christianity, 00:14:17.040 --> 00:14:21.920 with the doctrine of the Trinity, that from all eternity, the God, the Father has loved the Son, 00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:26.879 and the Son is love the Father, that you can really say that God is love. 00:14:29.759 --> 00:14:33.039 And he looked at me and said, well, boy, I'd never thought about that. 00:14:34.240 --> 00:14:38.479 Something to think about on my walk, he said with a smile, and off he went for his walk. 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:41.279 But that's very important for us to understand. 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:45.600 Look, you know, when you remember, this is how the text goes. It goes like this, 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:52.720 for God, how does it go again? John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, 00:14:53.439 --> 00:15:01.519 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. What this text is saying 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:09.199 is that God is love. And it's because God is love, that he sends his Son, that he sends us for this, 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:16.240 so that those who are perishing will not perish, but have eternal life. And this word, so, that happens 00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:22.240 there. Notice again, for God so, can you put it? Yeah, there you go. For God so loved the world. That 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:29.440 word so is very powerful. It has two different senses in the original language, and both of them 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:35.280 are intended. One of them means, this is how we know. This is the manner that God showed and proved that 00:15:35.279 --> 00:15:42.480 he loves us. We know that God proves us, and we know that God loves us, not because we human beings 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:49.439 have had intuitions, not because we human beings have been able to look at how the world works and 00:15:49.439 --> 00:15:54.399 discern that, therefore, God must be loved. No, none of those things will work. In fact, the great human 00:15:54.399 --> 00:15:59.919 problem is, when you look at the world, you can't actually figure out, just by looking at the world, 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:05.360 that God would be loved, or that love would even be basic, because you have so much tragedy and terror 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:11.839 and massacres. And it's hard to say why you would pick one thing rather than the other thing as being 00:16:11.839 --> 00:16:17.759 the most real. But the Bible here is saying with the word so, that this is how we know, this is how 00:16:17.759 --> 00:16:22.639 God showed that he is loved. This is how God shows that not only that he is loved, but that he loves human 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:32.080 beings. He showed it, he showed it by giving his only son, so that whoever believes in him should 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:36.639 not perish, but have eternal life. But the word so has another sense as well in the original language, 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:45.519 and it's a word of intensity. It's saying that God so greatly loved, so strongly loved, so tenderly loved, 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:52.720 so beautifully loved, so intensely loved, so wonderfully loved, so fully loved, so purely loved, 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:58.960 so unfailingly loved. It's a word of intensity. It's a word that, when I start to raise my voice, 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:04.879 that's what it wants us to say. It wants us to say, when, for God so loved the world. It's a word, 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:10.299 not only of the manner through his son, but of intensity. And there's something really wonderful 00:17:10.299 --> 00:17:15.500 about this. When you understand, when you come to, you know, a lot of times we Christians are afraid 00:17:15.500 --> 00:17:20.359 of talking about the Trinity, but we need to pray that God will help us to enter into it more and 00:17:20.359 --> 00:17:24.859 more and more, because it's absolutely, it's absolutely the most wonderful idea in the world, 00:17:24.859 --> 00:17:29.220 one of the most wonderful ideas in the world, and it's completely and utterly unique. You see, 00:17:29.259 --> 00:17:34.079 another thing about it is that when we think of love, we often think of passion. But I can tell you 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:40.660 right now, God does not love you with passion. Why? Well, here's the problem with passion. 00:17:40.660 --> 00:17:47.740 Passion comes and goes. I mean, isn't that always one of the problems? You have passion, 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:56.100 passionate love, and then the passion starts to fade? No. God loves you in something better than 00:17:56.100 --> 00:18:05.480 with passion. It is his nature to love. He cannot not love. He is only, well, he's not only love, 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:13.779 he's goodness and mercy and justice and beauty, but God is love. It is his nature to love. 00:18:15.400 --> 00:18:20.140 And that leads me to my third story. This one happened to be on Friday, but I think in telling 00:18:20.140 --> 00:18:25.339 the sermon, it's better to tell it to you in a different order. And once again, if you happen 00:18:25.339 --> 00:18:32.180 to be watching, I really appreciate the conversation. It's been very, I, every time somebody asks me about 00:18:32.180 --> 00:18:37.000 my sermon on a Friday or Saturday, somebody outside the Christian faith, I always find it tremendously 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:43.080 helpful. You can pray that more people ask me. So somebody on Friday. It's one of those times at the 00:18:43.080 --> 00:18:49.200 coffee shop, I was in there. It was late in the afternoon, and there were hardly anybody coming in. 00:18:49.259 --> 00:18:53.039 In fact, there was nobody lining up, just me. And the fellow said, well, what are you going to preach on 00:18:53.039 --> 00:19:02.659 on Sunday? And I said, well, I said, you know, he'd be interested in this. I think it was Luther and 00:19:02.659 --> 00:19:09.619 Augustine who said that John 3.16 summarizes all of Jesus's life and all of the Bible. I didn't think 00:19:09.619 --> 00:19:13.659 this up myself. I'm not smart enough. I can't remember if it was both of them or just one of 00:19:13.659 --> 00:19:18.159 them. I said, and this would be a guy who'd be interested in all things. I said, you know, 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:23.940 it was pointed out by Luther and, I think, Augustine a long time ago that these words of Jesus that he 00:19:23.940 --> 00:19:30.980 said in a simple sentence perfectly capture what his whole life and person and ministry was all about 00:19:30.980 --> 00:19:36.080 and perfectly summarize the Bible. And this fellow will call him and he said, oh, that's like, that's 00:19:36.080 --> 00:19:42.000 interesting. What is it? And I said, well, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:48.920 so that all that believe in him will not perish but have eternal life. Now, his response to me was a 00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:53.579 little bit different. He said to me, well, that's sort of like a bit of a platitude, isn't it? 00:19:54.359 --> 00:19:59.519 A bit of a platitude. I hadn't thought of that, by the way. A bit of a platitude. You know, love, 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:04.960 love, love. God is love. I said, it's a bit of a platitude. So I said to him, and this is because 00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:10.980 some of you were praying for me, so keep praying for me because I need prayer. You know, one of the 00:20:10.980 --> 00:20:17.019 things I read in the bottom of my notes is from an old hymn from, I think, the 400s that has the 00:20:17.019 --> 00:20:23.900 line, he the source, he the ending be. And I know that everything that I might ever say that is good 00:20:23.900 --> 00:20:30.579 has come from him and all the praise and glory should go to him. But I said to him, well, 00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:39.259 I said to Andy, what do you think human beings' deepest needs are? Like, I'll answer you. Don't you 00:20:39.259 --> 00:20:47.519 think that the deepest need for human beings is love? To love and to be loved, to be known and 00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:53.440 loved. Don't you think that's human beings' deepest need? And he said, well, yeah, that's probably true. 00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:56.680 I might want to add, you know, truth and so on. Yeah, yeah, we can add a couple of other things. But 00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:02.819 you agree that love is the deepest human need. And so I said to him, where does this come from in 00:21:02.819 --> 00:21:08.000 human beings? Like, don't you think it's a bit of a riddle, a bit of a mystery that human 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:15.000 beings' deepest need is love and to be loved? How do you account for it? Now, I know that this fellow 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:22.400 is a fellow who's had a completely secular background. He's, I think, a seeker. And I said, 00:21:22.460 --> 00:21:26.640 you know, if you think about it from the, you know, the stories that we tell about how human beings came 00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:34.019 to be in our culture, it can't be that love has any type of survival value. I mean, what are the most 00:21:34.019 --> 00:21:40.279 successful creatures on the planet, according to evolutionary theory? Ants and cockroaches. And you 00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:45.879 can maybe add a few other amoebas and stuff, and none of them love. None of them need love. So why is 00:21:45.879 --> 00:21:51.839 it that love is something which is so important for human beings in such a deep need? And I said, 00:21:51.920 --> 00:21:57.339 you know, the other problem is this, like, the way that we understand how life came to be in our 00:21:57.339 --> 00:22:02.500 culture, how it's talked about in the media and the press and the elite institutions, I said, you know, 00:22:04.019 --> 00:22:09.539 say that for the first half of that story, all there is is pure blind chance. And as a result of 00:22:09.539 --> 00:22:15.599 all of this pure blind chance, all of a sudden life comes into being. And I said, you can't say 00:22:15.599 --> 00:22:22.359 life is a result of blind chance, therefore love one another. That doesn't make any sense. 00:22:23.059 --> 00:22:28.920 And I said, once life begins, how is it that we get to the life that we have today? Well, I said, 00:22:28.920 --> 00:22:36.960 the stories that are told in our culture is that, well, the strong survive and the weak perish. 00:22:37.779 --> 00:22:44.640 And in many cases, especially in the early millennium of evolutionary theory, of evolutionary 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:51.779 development, the strong survive and the weak perish because the strong eat the weak. And you cannot go, 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:57.960 the strong eat the weak, therefore love one another. And he smiled and said, well, I think those are a bit 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:04.019 reductionist. And because I'm not very smart, as I was walking home, I thought, no, I should have said 00:23:04.019 --> 00:23:07.240 to him, they're not, I said something to him, I should have said, no, they're not reductionist. It's 00:23:07.240 --> 00:23:12.740 called reductio ad absurdum, taking something to their logical. I said, no, those are the actual basic 00:23:12.740 --> 00:23:18.220 things. I mean, you can't get away from that or around it. And then I said to him, you see, it's only 00:23:18.220 --> 00:23:24.700 the gospel, it's only what I just said in John 3, 16, that explains why human beings need love, 00:23:24.700 --> 00:23:32.360 why it's the most important thing, why we desire it. Because the Bible teaches, I said, in this, 00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:40.039 if you listen to the text, it's saying that God is love. And we understand that because God is love, 00:23:40.039 --> 00:23:50.519 when he created human beings, he created us out of love. And so we are meant to love and to be loved. 00:23:50.519 --> 00:24:00.019 God wove it into us. Only the gospel explains it. At that point in time, about six or seven young 00:24:00.019 --> 00:24:04.720 women came into the store, they had to be served, and I had to move on, so we didn't continue. 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:12.720 But we see here that, in fact, what the gospel is telling us is something which is profoundly 00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:20.160 important for our culture. Listen to it again. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, 00:24:20.620 --> 00:24:29.220 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. It all begins, everything to 00:24:29.220 --> 00:24:35.600 know about Jesus, everything to know about the Bible is captured in this short little sentence 00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:42.539 as the basic way to understand it. And it even says something here quite profound about human beings 00:24:42.539 --> 00:24:48.079 and about us. Look again at what it says. It says that whoever believes in him should not perish, 00:24:48.500 --> 00:24:54.159 but have eternal life. See, there's a mystery about human beings. There's a mystery about you and me. 00:24:54.160 --> 00:25:03.980 Each of us is perishing. Every day we live, we live a day closer to the day that we will die. 00:25:04.779 --> 00:25:09.180 We have lots of beautiful young children here in the church, and we can just see them growing and 00:25:09.180 --> 00:25:14.120 growing and growing and growing and getting bigger, and we pray for their flourishing, and we will do 00:25:14.120 --> 00:25:19.360 whatever we can to try to help them flourish. But for those of us who no longer grow, we know that 00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:24.959 gravity wins. And that after you grow and grow and grow and grow, there's the process. I'm shorter than 00:25:24.959 --> 00:25:33.419 I was a while ago, and things don't work as well. And of course, this message of the Bible is that 00:25:33.419 --> 00:25:40.639 there's a perishing of human beings that continues on after death. It's in fact just a plain fact of 00:25:40.639 --> 00:25:45.559 human existence that human beings perish. But put these things together, and if you could put up 00:25:45.559 --> 00:25:53.940 the first point, that would be very helpful, Claire. To be human is to be perishing while in your heart 00:25:53.940 --> 00:26:01.779 you long for the eternal. Isn't that a mystery? Can't you see that only the Bible explains that about 00:26:01.779 --> 00:26:08.679 human existence? We all know that we're perishing, but why is it that human beings, well, first of all, 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:13.139 in our culture, of course, we want to try to pretend that we're not, that we'll never die, but once it comes 00:26:13.140 --> 00:26:18.620 home to us, it's home to us. But why is it that we have, human beings have this longing for eternity 00:26:18.620 --> 00:26:25.280 in their hearts, the eternal? Like, why is it that when we look out at the world and we see death and 00:26:25.280 --> 00:26:33.640 destruction, we think in our hearts that love surely deserves to win, that love should be stronger than 00:26:33.640 --> 00:26:40.120 death? Why is it that we have these intuitions and longings, even in the midst of perishing? And that 00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:44.639 perishing that the Bible is talking about is saying that, in a sense, if you look at all of the perishing 00:26:44.639 --> 00:26:52.119 of life, it should be a clue that your perishing will continue on into eternity unless God does 00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:58.199 something to interrupt that process. And the wonder of the gospel is, is that God doesn't interrupt that 00:26:58.199 --> 00:27:05.000 process only for the people, well, like you and me, who are, you know, maybe university educated and 00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:11.640 good people and nice people, but that he interrupts that perishing. Well, even for that fellow who was 00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:17.500 behind me, who I thought, in a sinful manner, how could anyone ever love a man like that? 00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:26.579 But God, who is a God of love, loves that man and wants to interrupt and change the story of his life 00:27:26.579 --> 00:27:33.039 from perishing to eternal life. Like, even if you think about it, when we think of, well, here's the other 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:36.879 thing. If you could put up the second point, because it's even more profound what this Bible text is, 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:45.619 in a sense, helping us to understand. To be human is to be perishing while in your heart you long 00:27:45.619 --> 00:27:58.639 for eternal love. That's what human beings are. Only the gospel is the key that fits and unlocks this 00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:05.340 riddle about what it means to be a human being. For God so loved the world that he gave his only 00:28:05.340 --> 00:28:12.520 one and only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 00:28:14.360 --> 00:28:20.960 God, in love, gives this free gift. That's why that he gives. It's a free gift. The implication, 00:28:21.140 --> 00:28:26.240 even in the original language, it's something that God does. He does it on his own. He does it as a gift. 00:28:26.240 --> 00:28:34.319 And he desires your true creational good on this side of the grave and your true eternal good. 00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:39.799 And this is where, just briefly, I'll mention Matthew 11, because every Sunday I'm going to do 00:28:39.799 --> 00:28:47.180 Matthew 11 and the text. And here's this text. Matthew 11, hear what comfortable words our Lord 00:28:47.180 --> 00:28:54.000 and Savior Jesus Christ says to all who truly turn to him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy 00:28:54.000 --> 00:29:06.519 burdened. And I will give you rest. There is no rest that does not involve love. You can't rest in hatred. 00:29:07.420 --> 00:29:17.140 You can't rest in indifference. Love has to be an essential part of how our hearts rest. 00:29:17.140 --> 00:29:27.660 And that's here what the Bible is telling us to. If God is the God of love, and he acts in the person of his son 00:29:27.660 --> 00:29:34.700 to interrupt our perishing and instead to give us eternal life, it is eternal life is a life from him. 00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:42.520 And it means that we are resting in this eternal love. We are resting in God himself, eternal love. 00:29:42.519 --> 00:29:49.599 And here's where this part of me being a herald, and you and I being a herald, comes into it. 00:29:50.460 --> 00:29:57.019 I have no authority in and of myself to tell you what God is like. All I can do is tell you what I 00:29:57.019 --> 00:30:03.160 have learned from Jesus. I am one beggar telling another beggar where to find the gift of free bread, 00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:09.359 the gift of free bread for eternal life. That's all I can do. And all I can do is say to you, 00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:19.399 Jesus says, come unto me, all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. 00:30:20.139 --> 00:30:26.819 I can proclaim that. You can proclaim that to a hurting world. 00:30:26.819 --> 00:30:34.379 But some might say, just as we're coming to a closing, George, it doesn't sound, don't you think 00:30:34.379 --> 00:30:39.259 it sounds odd that believing is just a matter of having certain ideas in your head, and if you have 00:30:39.259 --> 00:30:44.059 certain ideas in your head, you have John 3.16 in your head, and therefore you're going to have this 00:30:44.059 --> 00:30:50.099 life eternal, and if not, you're going to perish? No, no, that's not what believing means. You know, 00:30:50.099 --> 00:30:58.119 believing it's a personal word. It's an interpersonal word. It's a word used here in connection of how 00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:04.419 one person relates to another person, how a human being relates to the personal God, and obviously 00:31:04.419 --> 00:31:11.219 there's going to be facts, and there are going to be words, but it's really a word of entrusting, 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:17.480 of committing, of entering into. If you think about it, if you meet somebody, you know, maybe in a coffee 00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:22.460 shop, maybe in a bar, maybe at work, maybe one of your neighbors, and you make that first little 00:31:22.460 --> 00:31:29.039 gesture to try to be their friend, and when you do that, when you introduce yourself and maybe have 00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:34.240 some little bit of a conversation, you're obviously on one level opening yourself up to some type of risk 00:31:34.240 --> 00:31:39.839 that they might just ignore you, or hate you, or to do whatever, but in a sense, you're, you know, opening 00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:46.140 yourself up to them a tiny bit, and what friendship is, and what love is as well, is that the other 00:31:46.140 --> 00:31:53.440 person responds and opens themselves up a little bit, and says something to you, and then if you open 00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:58.800 yourself up to them by what they say, they, in a sense, you're opening yourself up to them, and then 00:31:58.800 --> 00:32:04.720 as the conversation, the friendship, or in the case of romance of love, continues, it's this matter of 00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:10.140 opening yourself up to the other person, and they come into you, and you come into them, and that's what 00:32:10.140 --> 00:32:15.620 believing is, you see, that's one of the things that's so brilliant about the Bible, that's why 00:32:15.620 --> 00:32:20.520 you can say that, like, mentally, like, mentally handicapped can enter into relationships with 00:32:20.520 --> 00:32:26.100 people, like, you know, people who, with mental, like, all sorts, like, babies can, can enter into 00:32:26.100 --> 00:32:31.940 relationships with people, like, it's this fundamental human thing of opening yourself up, and entering in, 00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:36.960 and allowing the other person to come in, and that's what the word believe means, Jesus wants you to 00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:49.059 say to him, Jesus, I hear from this, that you are a friend of sinners, that you love the loveless, that you 00:32:49.059 --> 00:32:56.279 come to give eternal life, and I don't want to perish, and I turn to you, I open myself to you, will you 00:32:56.279 --> 00:33:03.480 turn to me, and the wonder of the gospel is Jesus is already earlier saying, come unto me, he's in a sense 00:33:03.480 --> 00:33:13.299 there, just rubbing his hands, clapping, just wanting to high-five, angels, yes, George turned to me, 00:33:14.500 --> 00:33:24.480 Louise turned to me, Gloria turned to me, Andrea turned to me, I've been longing for that, I will come to 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:40.720 them, I will be his or her savior, just a couple of final points in closing, if you could put up the 00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:47.920 the the the third point, one of the things to take from all of this, well the first one is this, if you 00:33:47.920 --> 00:33:52.700 are here, and you have not yet given your life to Christ, there is no time better than right this 00:33:52.700 --> 00:33:59.500 moment, to stop listening to anything other thing I say, and just say, Jesus, I heard what you said 00:33:59.500 --> 00:34:07.980 in John 3 16, and I turn to you, please be my savior and Lord, and he he will accept you, and if you are 00:34:07.980 --> 00:34:12.119 here, and you do that, if you are there, and do that, one of the best things you can do after you've 00:34:12.119 --> 00:34:18.139 prayed that, and just said it to Jesus, that I want this eternal life, I want to be yours, will you be 00:34:18.139 --> 00:34:22.699 mine, after you say it, whatever your words are, let somebody know that you've said it, 00:34:23.739 --> 00:34:31.759 let us know, and we will pray for you, but here's the the third point, if you could put it up, 00:34:32.420 --> 00:34:39.259 Lord, engrave John 3 16 on my heart, and incline my heart to live by it, 00:34:39.260 --> 00:34:47.460 we will deal with those who smell really bad, far better, if John 3 16 forms how we live, 00:34:48.180 --> 00:34:53.640 we will deal with enemies, we will deal with injustice, we will deal with love, with life, 00:34:53.640 --> 00:35:01.180 so much better, if God in his kindness engraves John 3 16 on our heart, and inclines our hearts 00:35:01.180 --> 00:35:08.820 to live each day by it, it's a, I urge you to pray that for yourself, and then just one final thing, 00:35:08.820 --> 00:35:13.740 if you could put it up, that would be number four, just to remember that to love is to seek the 00:35:13.740 --> 00:35:20.320 person's true good, where they are now, and into eternity, that's what love means, not just a passion, 00:35:20.700 --> 00:35:26.500 not emotions, it's to seek that person's true good on this side of the grave, and into eternity, 00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:32.400 it might be that if that fellow would be part of God's sense of humor, if sometime down over the next 00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:36.940 couple of weeks, I was able to share the gospel with him, and he became a Christian, and I invite him 00:35:36.940 --> 00:35:42.200 to church, and that's what I should do, I should share the gospel with him, shouldn't I, but part 00:35:42.200 --> 00:35:48.220 of discipleship might be to encourage him to take a bath, or wash his clothes, you see there's this 00:35:48.220 --> 00:35:55.019 old brilliant hymn that says, talks about how love to the loveless shown, that, and I've added the word, 00:35:55.360 --> 00:36:01.159 but it says love to the loveless shown, that loved and lovely we may be, that's, that's why being formed 00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:09.219 by John 3 16 is so important, because God not wants us to out of being loved by him, his love will make 00:36:09.219 --> 00:36:17.199 you lovely, on this side of the grave, and into eternity, I invite you to stand, as we bring our 00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:19.239 sermon to a close, 00:36:19.239 --> 00:36:39.279 Father, we give you thanks and praise that Jesus did not let us guess about what he was doing in his life, or 00:36:39.279 --> 00:36:46.559 what his life was all about, or what his mission was, or where he came from, or why he was doing what he was doing, that 00:36:46.559 --> 00:36:53.920 he, we don't have to guess, that he told us, and we ask, Father, that you help us to believe what he said, 00:36:54.259 --> 00:37:01.079 we ask, Father, that you would engrave these precious words of John 3 16 on the very center of who we are, 00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:07.579 that day by day you would incline our hearts to live by John 3 16, 00:37:08.719 --> 00:37:13.920 that you would make us people who are convicted when we do not love, 00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:17.180 and to call out to you that you would help us to love, 00:37:17.940 --> 00:37:21.619 that we would be people who would share the good news in 00:37:21.619 --> 00:37:25.700 John 3 16 with those who do not yet know Jesus as Savior and Lord, 00:37:26.519 --> 00:37:29.579 that you would have us pray that people come to know 00:37:29.579 --> 00:37:31.700 Jesus as their Savior and Lord, 00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:35.599 that they might know that gift of Jesus that stops 00:37:35.599 --> 00:37:38.240 them from perishing and grants them eternal life. 00:37:38.239 --> 00:37:42.139 So, Father, we ask that you would do these wonderful things in our lives 00:37:42.139 --> 00:37:45.039 for our good and for your glory, 00:37:45.839 --> 00:37:47.299 and all God's people said, 00:37:48.079 --> 00:37:48.379 Amen. 00:37:48.379 --> 00:37:48.539 Amen. 00:37:48.539 --> 00:37:48.539 00:37:48.539 --> 00:37:48.539 00:37:48.539 --> 00:37:48.539 00:37:48.539 --> 00:37:48.539 00:37:48.539 --> 00:37:48.539