“The Greatest Gift”
December 25, 2005
John 3:16
You may have picked up that our theme for this year’s Advent Season was “The Gifts of Christmas.”
Every week, our Advent reading said, “Advent means coming. Christmas is coming. Jesus has come and is coming again. This year, we are preparing our hearts for Christmas and for Jesus by delighting in a few of God’s great gifts.”
Well, today, Christmas is finally here.
And I would like to take this time to delight in God’s greatest Christmas gift. “The Greatest Gift” ever.
And we see that in the most famous Bible verse ever, John chapter 3, verse 16. You can turn there in your Bibles if you like, it’s found on Pew Bible Page #1052. John 3:16.
I hope almost everyone here has it memorized:
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
This most famous verse describes “The Greatest Gift” of Christmas.
Because it is so familiar, it would be easy to miss the powerful truth it contains. Let’s pray and then soak in and delight in John 3:16 together.
[prayer]
I want to point out four things for us this morning:
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
#1. The Greatest Giver.
Notice Who does the giving in John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son...”
God the Father is the Giver.
And He is the greatest giver there ever was.
This week, I did something stupid. I decided to have some film developed at Wal-Mart and just drop in to pick it up on Thursday. Just in and out, right?! Thursday was December 23rd! What was I thinking? There were wall-to-wall cars and people shopping on top of each other!
Everybody was looking to buy gifts. Because today, December 25, is the day when we become givers. We have something that belongs to us. And we designate it for and release it to someone else for their benefit.
We give. And when we give a gift, we are acting, in a small way, like God. We are doing something that God does. We are echoing God’s character and God’s nature.
When we give gifts we are imitating His graciousness. Because He is the Greatest Giver.
This verse tells us that God is gracious.
That’s stands in the face of a common misperception of salvation. It’s easy to think that God the Father is holy and wrathful at sin, but God the Son is loving and gracious and came up with a plan to appease the Father’s wrath.
It is true that God is holy and angry at our sin. That is true!
But it was God Himself in His grace that came up with a plan to satisfy His own just wrath.
That’s how gracious God is! God is the Greatest Giver.
We know that because He gave (#2) The Greatest Gift.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son...”
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift.
There is nothing in the universe more precious than God the Son.
There is nothing in the universe more precious TO GOD than God the Son!
Remember a few weeks ago what God told Jesus at His baptism? In Mark chapter 1?
“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
God gave the most precious thing that He had...His One and Only Son.
Or “only begotten” Son.
This Christmas Season, I have been studying the doctrine of the Trinity in my devotional times.
I’ve been specifically learning about the Nicean Creed that was adopted by the church in AD 325. There was a controversy brought up by a man named Arius who believed that Jesus, though the Son of God in some sense, was not eternally God and equally divine with the Father.
And the church held a council, called the council of Nicea and they decided that the biblical teaching was that Jesus was eternally God and co-equal with God in essense and nature while being distinct in person.
But the controversy continued to rage for another fifty-some years with the fate of the church hanging in the balance. Arius’s followers sometimes took over the major leadership posts in the church, and it looked the church as a whole was going to fall into heresy.
But a man named Athanasius continued to lead the charge for biblical orthodoxy and the eternal deity of Christ even through death threats and three exiles.
And finally, the Nicene Creed was adopted and fully supported by the entire church.
Here’s what it says:
“I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.” [THE NICENE CREED (A.D. 325; revised at Constantinople A.D. 381)]
Did you catch that description of Jesus?
“[I believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father...”
That’s what God gave up for us!
He gave His one and only Son.
Now, I have three sons. And I can’t imagine giving them up for someone else.
But God has One and Only One Son like Jesus. And that’s what He gave!
Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift (#3) from The Greatest Love.
It says, “For God so loved the world that He gave...”
This is the greatest love ever shown.
You know why?
Because we are not lovable!
God’s love isn’t so “so” [Notice that word “so.” It emphasizes this love. “So loved.” God’s love isn’t so “so”] because the world is so big. It’s because the world is so bad!
The “world” in John’s Gospel is the fallen system of humanity that is full of rebel sinners against a holy God and are being led off by Satan.
That’s “the world” that God loves!
God so loved a world in rebellion[!] that He gave His most cherished possession!
That’s unbelievable!
The apostle Paul marveled at it, too. He said in Romans 5, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Vv.6-8).
This gift is motivated by the most amazing love!
A love that comes from deep within the Father’s character.
A love that is contra-conditional! It’s not just un-conditional. It is against the conditions that exist–namely, our sin.
Do you know this? By all rights, God should not love you! You do not deserve it!
But this says that He does.
If God is the Greatest Giver, you and I are the unworthiest recipients!
And that just brings Him more glory.
Amazing Love, How Can It Be?
That You, My God, Should Die For Me?
This is the gospel. This is the good news.
It is the Greatest Gift.
We can’t do any better than to think about this good news.
God, the Greatest Giver, gave His Son, the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love, even though we were sinners, for the (#4) The Greatest Life.
This is what His gift does.
“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him [the Son] shall not perish but have eternal life.”
This is talking about FOREVER.
This Fall, I preached a series of messages on the eternal stakes that are being talked about right here.
I said every week that forever is coming. It will be endless, interminable, eternal, everlasting, unending, unceasing, perpetual, abiding, incessant, unstopping, forever and ever.
And there are only two forever destinations: heaven and hell.
Our default destination is hell. That’s what this means when He says, “perish.”
That’s eternal death. That’s eternal dying. Eternal punishment.
Hell is what is coming for all who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hell is what the “world” deserves.
Hell is what Matt Mitchell deserves.
Perishing is what Matt Mitchell deserves.
Perishing is what you deserve, too.
But God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall NOT perish[!] but have eternal life.
That’s the greatest kind of life to have.
Jesus says, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Jesus says that He has come that we might have life and have it abundantly. Life to the full. Forever!
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
That’s the message of Christmas. That’s what was happening in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.
The Greatest Giver was giving the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
What should we in response?
Two applications this morning.
#1. Receive the Gift.
Not everyone does. The “for” in “For God so loved the world” looks back to the conversation that Jesus was having with Nicodemus at nighttime. Nick and Nite, I like to say!
And Jesus was telling Nicodemus that he had to be born again and to believe in Jesus.
And Jesus likened Himself to the snake that God told Moses made in the desert that if people looked up to in faith they would be healed of the plague (Numbers chapter 21).
But only those who looked up in faith at the snake in the desert were healed. The others perished in the plague.
Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Only those who believe in the Son get eternal life.
In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel, John says that this believing is a kind of receiving. John 1:12 says, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God–children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.”
God has given the gift, but we need to receive it.
Have you received this gift?
You cannot earn it. Don’t even try!
But you must receive it. You must turn and put your faith and trust in Jesus and what He did on the Cross for you.
“Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Whoever. Put your name there in that verse.
Pastor Matt believes in Him and shall not perish but have eternal life.
Put your name there in that verse and then pray it to God. Tell Him that you want to receive the Greatest Gift from His love.
And #2. Rejoice in the Giver!
This is the Gospel!
This is the Greatest News ever!
This is what we should live our lives for and be willing to die for!
This is the Gospel! It is worth rejoicing in!
It’s worth celebrating!
It’s worth thinking about.
It’s worth telling others about.
It’s worth turning away from anything that would distract us from this message.
It’s worth making central in our lives.
It’s worth worshiping about!
Rejoice in the Giver and His Greatest Gift!
Don’t allow anything to get in the way of your joy in Jesus.
If you have Jesus, you have the Greatest Thing in the Universe!
Good Christian Men (and Women), Rejoice!
With heart and soul and voice!
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Peace! Peace! Jesus Christ was born to save.
Calls you one and calls you all to gain His everlasting Hall
Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save! [Ancient Latin Carol]
Isn’t that great news?!!!
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Receive the Gift, and Rejoice in the Giver!
December 25, 2005
John 3:16
You may have picked up that our theme for this year’s Advent Season was “The Gifts of Christmas.”
Every week, our Advent reading said, “Advent means coming. Christmas is coming. Jesus has come and is coming again. This year, we are preparing our hearts for Christmas and for Jesus by delighting in a few of God’s great gifts.”
Well, today, Christmas is finally here.
And I would like to take this time to delight in God’s greatest Christmas gift. “The Greatest Gift” ever.
And we see that in the most famous Bible verse ever, John chapter 3, verse 16. You can turn there in your Bibles if you like, it’s found on Pew Bible Page #1052. John 3:16.
I hope almost everyone here has it memorized:
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
This most famous verse describes “The Greatest Gift” of Christmas.
Because it is so familiar, it would be easy to miss the powerful truth it contains. Let’s pray and then soak in and delight in John 3:16 together.
[prayer]
I want to point out four things for us this morning:
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
#1. The Greatest Giver.
Notice Who does the giving in John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son...”
God the Father is the Giver.
And He is the greatest giver there ever was.
This week, I did something stupid. I decided to have some film developed at Wal-Mart and just drop in to pick it up on Thursday. Just in and out, right?! Thursday was December 23rd! What was I thinking? There were wall-to-wall cars and people shopping on top of each other!
Everybody was looking to buy gifts. Because today, December 25, is the day when we become givers. We have something that belongs to us. And we designate it for and release it to someone else for their benefit.
We give. And when we give a gift, we are acting, in a small way, like God. We are doing something that God does. We are echoing God’s character and God’s nature.
When we give gifts we are imitating His graciousness. Because He is the Greatest Giver.
This verse tells us that God is gracious.
That’s stands in the face of a common misperception of salvation. It’s easy to think that God the Father is holy and wrathful at sin, but God the Son is loving and gracious and came up with a plan to appease the Father’s wrath.
It is true that God is holy and angry at our sin. That is true!
But it was God Himself in His grace that came up with a plan to satisfy His own just wrath.
That’s how gracious God is! God is the Greatest Giver.
We know that because He gave (#2) The Greatest Gift.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son...”
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift.
There is nothing in the universe more precious than God the Son.
There is nothing in the universe more precious TO GOD than God the Son!
Remember a few weeks ago what God told Jesus at His baptism? In Mark chapter 1?
“You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
God gave the most precious thing that He had...His One and Only Son.
Or “only begotten” Son.
This Christmas Season, I have been studying the doctrine of the Trinity in my devotional times.
I’ve been specifically learning about the Nicean Creed that was adopted by the church in AD 325. There was a controversy brought up by a man named Arius who believed that Jesus, though the Son of God in some sense, was not eternally God and equally divine with the Father.
And the church held a council, called the council of Nicea and they decided that the biblical teaching was that Jesus was eternally God and co-equal with God in essense and nature while being distinct in person.
But the controversy continued to rage for another fifty-some years with the fate of the church hanging in the balance. Arius’s followers sometimes took over the major leadership posts in the church, and it looked the church as a whole was going to fall into heresy.
But a man named Athanasius continued to lead the charge for biblical orthodoxy and the eternal deity of Christ even through death threats and three exiles.
And finally, the Nicene Creed was adopted and fully supported by the entire church.
Here’s what it says:
“I believe in one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.” [THE NICENE CREED (A.D. 325; revised at Constantinople A.D. 381)]
Did you catch that description of Jesus?
“[I believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father...”
That’s what God gave up for us!
He gave His one and only Son.
Now, I have three sons. And I can’t imagine giving them up for someone else.
But God has One and Only One Son like Jesus. And that’s what He gave!
Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift (#3) from The Greatest Love.
It says, “For God so loved the world that He gave...”
This is the greatest love ever shown.
You know why?
Because we are not lovable!
God’s love isn’t so “so” [Notice that word “so.” It emphasizes this love. “So loved.” God’s love isn’t so “so”] because the world is so big. It’s because the world is so bad!
The “world” in John’s Gospel is the fallen system of humanity that is full of rebel sinners against a holy God and are being led off by Satan.
That’s “the world” that God loves!
God so loved a world in rebellion[!] that He gave His most cherished possession!
That’s unbelievable!
The apostle Paul marveled at it, too. He said in Romans 5, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Vv.6-8).
This gift is motivated by the most amazing love!
A love that comes from deep within the Father’s character.
A love that is contra-conditional! It’s not just un-conditional. It is against the conditions that exist–namely, our sin.
Do you know this? By all rights, God should not love you! You do not deserve it!
But this says that He does.
If God is the Greatest Giver, you and I are the unworthiest recipients!
And that just brings Him more glory.
Amazing Love, How Can It Be?
That You, My God, Should Die For Me?
This is the gospel. This is the good news.
It is the Greatest Gift.
We can’t do any better than to think about this good news.
God, the Greatest Giver, gave His Son, the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love, even though we were sinners, for the (#4) The Greatest Life.
This is what His gift does.
“God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him [the Son] shall not perish but have eternal life.”
This is talking about FOREVER.
This Fall, I preached a series of messages on the eternal stakes that are being talked about right here.
I said every week that forever is coming. It will be endless, interminable, eternal, everlasting, unending, unceasing, perpetual, abiding, incessant, unstopping, forever and ever.
And there are only two forever destinations: heaven and hell.
Our default destination is hell. That’s what this means when He says, “perish.”
That’s eternal death. That’s eternal dying. Eternal punishment.
Hell is what is coming for all who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hell is what the “world” deserves.
Hell is what Matt Mitchell deserves.
Perishing is what Matt Mitchell deserves.
Perishing is what you deserve, too.
But God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall NOT perish[!] but have eternal life.
That’s the greatest kind of life to have.
Jesus says, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
Jesus says that He has come that we might have life and have it abundantly. Life to the full. Forever!
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
That’s the message of Christmas. That’s what was happening in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.
The Greatest Giver was giving the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
What should we in response?
Two applications this morning.
#1. Receive the Gift.
Not everyone does. The “for” in “For God so loved the world” looks back to the conversation that Jesus was having with Nicodemus at nighttime. Nick and Nite, I like to say!
And Jesus was telling Nicodemus that he had to be born again and to believe in Jesus.
And Jesus likened Himself to the snake that God told Moses made in the desert that if people looked up to in faith they would be healed of the plague (Numbers chapter 21).
But only those who looked up in faith at the snake in the desert were healed. The others perished in the plague.
Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Only those who believe in the Son get eternal life.
In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel, John says that this believing is a kind of receiving. John 1:12 says, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God–children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.”
God has given the gift, but we need to receive it.
Have you received this gift?
You cannot earn it. Don’t even try!
But you must receive it. You must turn and put your faith and trust in Jesus and what He did on the Cross for you.
“Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Whoever. Put your name there in that verse.
Pastor Matt believes in Him and shall not perish but have eternal life.
Put your name there in that verse and then pray it to God. Tell Him that you want to receive the Greatest Gift from His love.
And #2. Rejoice in the Giver!
This is the Gospel!
This is the Greatest News ever!
This is what we should live our lives for and be willing to die for!
This is the Gospel! It is worth rejoicing in!
It’s worth celebrating!
It’s worth thinking about.
It’s worth telling others about.
It’s worth turning away from anything that would distract us from this message.
It’s worth making central in our lives.
It’s worth worshiping about!
Rejoice in the Giver and His Greatest Gift!
Don’t allow anything to get in the way of your joy in Jesus.
If you have Jesus, you have the Greatest Thing in the Universe!
Good Christian Men (and Women), Rejoice!
With heart and soul and voice!
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Peace! Peace! Jesus Christ was born to save.
Calls you one and calls you all to gain His everlasting Hall
Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save! [Ancient Latin Carol]
Isn’t that great news?!!!
The Greatest Giver gave the Greatest Gift from the Greatest Love for the Greatest Life.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Receive the Gift, and Rejoice in the Giver!
0 comments:
Post a Comment