Seven Wonders of John 3:16 pt 4
Expiration Dates
The thing I feel I have enjoyed the most in quarantine life is the fact I have not been in a hurry in over two months. I can rarely recall moments in the prior 20 years where I didn’t feel in a hurry. Where my mind wasn’t on the next thing that had to be done. Where I didn’t rush through something to be able to get to the next thing, to get to the next thing, to get to the next thing, to get home and go to bed so I can get up early and get to the next thing. This is how we end up with junk stashed all over the place. We simply don’t want to take the time to organize, or don’t have the time to organize, when we can just throw it into the corner, the junk drawer, stash it in the closet, until we have more time.
I’ve patiently organized so many things in the house! Just this past weekend was the spice cabinet. I went through the whole thing! I started tossing out spices that were unused, or had caked together. I found an old bottle of food lion brand onion powder that expired in 2015! It was just a solid clump or onion powder at this point. That’s not to mention expired stuff I tossed from pantry, fridge, freezer and medicine cabinet. Part of what has us so terrified about Covid is that it makes us consider our own expiration dates, and those of our loved ones as well. Let’s continue to dig into John 3:16 and see what we really have to fear.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
There are 7 wonders to be found in John 3:16. Pastor & Author David Guzik listed them as such.
God
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The Almighty Authority
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So loved the world
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The Mightiest Motive
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That He gave His only begotten Son
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The Greatest Gift
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That whoever
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The Widest Welcome
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Believes in Him
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The Easiest Escape
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Should not perish
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The Divine Deliverance
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But have everlasting life
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The Priceless Possession
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First we talked about God, The Almighty Authority.. God is eternal. He always has been, always is and always will be. John 3:16 starts with God, The Eternal All Powerful maker of the heavens and the earth.
Then we saw the mightiest motive, love. Not the temporary conditional love that the world offers. I love you until it’s no longer convenient or no longer benefits me. God’s Love is that Agape love, a statement of commitment evidenced by unconditional sacrifice. We’ve all made sacrifices for those that we love. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the love on display. We make minor sacrifices for strangers, giving up a seat, letting someone in front of you in the check out line. The biggest sacrifices are reserved for those that we love the most.
John 15:3 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
God, in demonstrating His love for us, made the ultimate sacrifice. When He gave His only begotten Son. This was the greatest sacrifice, and the greatest gift. Who is this gift for? Whosoever. We dug into the Greek for Whosoever and we realized it was the most inclusive word possible.
The Greek is the word Pas. It includes all forms of declension (ways of categorizing things), all, any, every, the whole, all manner of, all means, always, any, any one, ever, everyone, every way, as many as, thoroughly, whatsoever, whole, whosoever. It is the most inclusive word possible! We have a hard time conceiving of that right now in our polarized my way is the only way and those that don’t agree with me 100% are my enemy society. We don’t want to include anyone that differs from us in anyway. We actively look for reasons to exclude people, to disagree, to argue, to express our opinion as the only opinion.
However, when it comes to the greatest gift, God’s Son, given by the greatest giver (God, The Father), for the greatest reason (Unconditional love) it’s available to everyone. EVERYONE! The Greek word Pas for whosoever is the most inclusive possible word! No one, No one. Is excluded, for any reason from the gospel, ever. The Widest Welcome!
Whosoever does what? We know the opportunity is available to everyone but what does it require? Is there a complicated admission process? What great work must I do? Believe. Whosoever believes in Him. There’s no work to be done, it’s all already been done for us.
Jesus tells us where all our faith and believes should be centered. In Him. The only way out of this sinful world and into an eternity of sinless perfection is Him. The easiest escape.
This brings us to tonight. Divine Deliverance.
God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish.
Perish is a word we don’t actually use a ton. It’s main two uses are in saying “Perish the thought” when we don’t want to think about something unpleasant. We also use it with non-perishable items. Those things we buy that don’t go bad, or at least don’t go bad easily. We understand that food, spices, medications, things like this eventually go bad. I also know many of you don’t particular care for expiration dates and use stuff well past them.
That’s not really what Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about death. Yet, more than that. He’s talking about death that leads to an eternity in Hell. The Greek word here is Apollymi. Bonus points to those of you that just connected that word to Apollyon, the Angel of the Bottomless pit who releases the demon locusts in Revelation 9.
Apollymi has two main usages 1) to perish, to be lost, ruined, destroyed 2) to devote or give over to eternal misery in hell.
Ever since Genesis 3 we have been bound on a one way trip to hell. Our sin separates us from God. Sin has given everything in this world an expiration date, even the world itself.
2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
Or if you want science we have the second law of thermodynamics that lets us know that everything eventually will break down, rot, rust and decay. Even the great pyramids of Giza, the lone surviving ancient wonder of the world will one day also be no more. I read somewhere that with no human interference it would take 138 million years for those pyramids to disintegrate back into sand. That’s impressive isn’t it? Yet, that amount of time, is nothing more than a drop in the bucket compared to eternity.
We don’t have 138 million years. We have roughly 78 on average. We know we are going to die and It's frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. We ask, to what end? Dread it. Run from it. It arrives all the same. And now with Covid, we think, it is here I thought I had more time. What do we do? We believe! We exercise Faith not fear! I ask you right now are you saved? You listening to this sermon are you saved? I know some of you just answered to yourself well so n so preached, I prayed a prayer and then got baptized. What were you saved from? Were you saved from Bitterness? Were you saved from Gossip? Were you saved from fear? Were you saved from lust? Were you saved from lying? Were you saved from bad manners? Come on, what were you saved from? You were saved from Hell! An eternity in hell that we all deserved, deserve and will deserve on a daily basis were it not for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is not the time for labeling, blaming, condemning, conserving, protecting, attacking or defending. For those of us who believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, this is the time to speak with tenderness, compassion, confidence, and love. We don’t have answer every question that is asked us or accept the terms that are given to us by the world. Frequently when those in power tried to ask Jesus questions, he side stepped their political games and got to the heart of the gospel! We should do the same! When the wrong question is asked, we offer better questions. Given polarized choices, we answer in nuanced essay. When we are asked for a clear answer, we respond with a parable. When we are asked for a position, we give our testimony.
When people ask why are you the way that you are? Don’t you know that you too will perish. We say No! We shall not perish, because we have everlasting life. Jesus Divine Deliverance leads us to a priceless possession! For as long as history has been recorded people have sought everlasting life! This is not an accident. We know from Ecc 3 that God has set eternity in our hearts. We know there’s more to life than this.
Yet, we seek it all in the wrong places. Ponce de Leon famously went out seeking the fountain of youth. You can go visit it yourself in St. Augustine Florida. In the 70’s and 80’s the big thing of cryopreservation . Freezing your body with the hopes of one day in the future you can be thawed out and cured of whatever. 15 years or so ago it was cloning. Most recently it was uploading your brain into a computer. All of that, while it makes of entertaining Science Fiction, it is also ridiculous tripe.
Everlasting life is more than just not dying. It’s more than an eternity in the good place where whatever we can imagine appears in unlimited fashion. I submit to you an eternity with everything you ever wanted but without God would in fact not be heaven but hell. What is Eternal life without God? It’s hell.
Eternal life here is connected back to the motive! This describes the duration of God’s love. The love we receive among people may fade, change or turn, but God’s love will never fade, turn or change. He will never stop loving His people, even unto the furthest distance of eternity. God loves us as much today as He did yesterday and as He will do tomorrow. People frequently ask what will we do in Heaven? The fear I think in that question is will I get bored? I don’t know what we will do but I do know who will be there. The one who loved us enough to die for us. That’s more than enough for me.
Theologian F.F. Bruce said “If there is one sentence more than another which sums up the message of the Fourth Gospel, it is this. The love of God is limitless; it embraces all mankind. No sacrifice was too great to bring its unmeasured intensity home to men and women: the best that God had to give, he gave – his only Son, his well-beloved.
As the church, now is the time to be all about living, showing and preaching the Love of God! That none should perish, but have everlasting life.
