John 3:16-21: For God so loved the world...

Presented to each the Nipawin and Tisdale Corps 23 November 2008, Swift Current Corps on 12 March 2011, Warehouse Mission on Toronto 07 May 2017 and Alberni Valley Ministries on 18 Aug 2018 by Captain Michael Ramsay

John 3:16 is among the verses in the Bible that almost everyone knows. If people memorize no other verse in the Bible they usually memorize this one. Let’s all say John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life, John 3:16.”

The fact that we pretty much all know it is neat because in this Salvation Army hall today, we have people of many different ages from different parts of the country who were brought up in many different traditions: The Salvation Army –of course- Baptist, Roman Catholic, Apostolic – there are even people here who were raised in the Atheist religion and yet we all know John 3:16 by heart. I think that is neat and it points to its importance. Martin Luther said of John 3:16 that the verse flows like milk and honey and its words are “able to make the sad happy, [and] the dead alive if only the heart believes them firmly”[1] whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. This is important (cf. TSA d. 6).

Because it is so important, we all know it and indeed we all have seen it many places... There was a time too when it seems that you couldn’t turn on a sporting event even without seeing someone hold up a sign that said ‘John 3:16’ on it. Do you remember that? Has anyone seen that? Do you know the story about how that got started? I ran across a version of this event by Dr. David Wendel when I was doing my research. He says:

A man tried to make his mark on society by attending sporting events, getting on camera, and holding up a sign that said, "John 3:16". The fellow's name is Rollen Stewart, whose story is told in a documentary titled, "The Rainbow Man/John 3:16", made by San Francisco filmmaker, Sam Green.

Steward had problems and it seems Stewart's problems started during his childhood. His parents were alcoholics, his father died when he was seven, his mother was killed in a house fire when he was 15 and that same year his sister was strangled by her boyfriend. Rollen got into drag racing in high school, married his girlfriend, and opened a racing shop. Then his wife left him, he sold the shop, moved to the mountains, became a marijuana farmer, tried to grow the world's longest moustache, and watched a lot of TV.

In 1976, hoping to gain some attention, he had the idea to become famous by constantly popping up in the background of TV sporting events. So, putting on a rainbow-coloured wig and carrying a battery powered TV to keep track of the cameras, he would wait for his moment, then jump in to the camera frame-smiling and giving a big ‘thumbs-up’. It didn’t work.

But in his depression after the 1980 Super Bowl, he had a conversion experience while watching a TV preacher in his hotel room. At which point, he began showing up at sporting events wearing T-shirts emblazoned with "Jesus Saves", and holding that now famous sign which reads, "John 3:16". Later accompanied by his second wife, he spent his time traveling to sporting events around the country, living in his car, existing on just savings and donations. All in all, he figures he was seen at more than a thousand sporting events – Until his wife left him because he supposedly choked her for holding up a sign in the wrong location; his car was totalled by a drunk driver, his money ran out, and he wound up homeless in L.A.

Feeling harassed and convinced that the end was near, he then set off a string of bombs in a church, a Christian bookstore, a newspaper office, and other locations. He sent out apocalyptic letters warning of the end time and compiled a hit list of preachers. On September 22, 1992, Rollen, the man who brought the gospel in John 3:16 to the American sports fan, believing in the Rapture, that it was only six days away, and wanting to make a big media splash, he took a maid and two labourers hostage in an LA airport hotel, and demanded a three-hour press conference. Instead, the police threw in a grenade, kicked down the door, and Rollen is now serving three life-sentences for kidnapping. [2]

As Paul Harvey would say…now you know the REST of the story.

It is interesting that God can use any of us to do His will and any of us, even those of us who have been used by God, can fall to temptation. None of us is immune to temptation. In our world we have seen many people who served the Lord fall. I can remember the 1980s when it seemed for a while that every Christian that ever appeared on TV was winding up in the courts, in jail, in scandals, or just plain in need of special jackets and padded cells.

There have been many people in history who like Mr. Stewart who even after they ‘find God’ – after they realise that God so loved that world that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, that stumble. They turn away from the light into the darkness; they succumb to the world.

John 3:17 records for us that Jesus did not come to condemn the world but rather He came so that the world may be saved through Him. Verse 18 tells us that any of us who actually believe in Jesus are not condemned but saved. Any of us who actually put our faith in Jesus are not condemned. And as we read last week (November 2008), any of us who love Jesus, any of us who are his friends, will naturally do his will which is indeed the will of the Father (John 15:9-17,23; John 14:7-12).

It is interesting that John 3:16 says that Jesus died for the whole world. The Greek word for world here is ‘Kosmos’.[3] It refers to all civilization or all humankind. He died for us all so that we can now all live life abundantly and freely follow God’s will (cf. TSA d. 6). There is no need for any to perish but yet some people do.

Now I must confess to you that this is something that I really do not understand. Unlike Susan and others in this room who have had wonderful turn-arounds in their lives as they moved from Hell to Heaven; damnation to salvation; as they moved from serving themselves to serving God; unlike those that have had these glorious later in life conversion experiences – the Lord permitted me the privilege of never really knowing life without Him. I remember experiencing the warming of my heart, that John Wesley speaks of, as a child of six years old or so. Both before and much since I confess (as there have been many years now) I have sinned. Sure I have made some dramatic mistakes in my life and sure I am only saved, as are we all, by the grace of God. I thank the Lord for His grace in my life and since I was a small child, I have claimed His promise many times that whosever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16) and whoever loves the Lord will obey His commandments (John 14:15). To me this seems so simple. The Gospel (Good News) is so simple. Jesus loves us; whoever loves and obey Jesus will have eternal life.

The question that seems much more difficult for many people though is, ‘Why do people then go to Hell?’ If Jesus loves the whole world and He didn’t come to condemn it but to save us why are some people not saved? Why? If Jesus died for everyone and salvation is so simple – all we have to do is believe in Him – why do some people fall and why do some people, as it says in verse 18, stand condemned?

I imagine that everyone has heard even people who profess to believe in God, claim that they don’t believe in the devil. I imagine everyone here has heard a person claim that they don’t believe in sin. I imagine that everyone here has heard someone declare that they don’t believe in Hell or even in Jesus because, “How can a supposedly loving God condemn people to Hell?”

Well, He doesn’t. You heard me right but listen carefully to what I am saying here… Jesus doesn’t condemn people to Hell. Hell is real but Jesus does not send people there. Those who are going there make that decision all on their own. Those who stand condemned condemn themselves by denying (like the Apostle Paul makes clear in Romans Chapters 1 and 2) what is plainly obvious to everyone.[4] I truly believe that God gives us all we need to know in this life from our experiences and even creation itself (cf. Romans 1:18-24) and indeed there will still be a time when every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Romans 14:11, Philipians 2:10) and then some, some who believe in the Lord and obey His commandments will go off to spend eternity with Him[5] and some, some who deny Christ (Matthew 10:33) and do not obey His commandments (John 14:15), some who simply refuse His love will go off to the hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mathew 25:31ff). This is sad.

This is particularly sad because we know that God loves us. Verse 3:16 says that He loves the entire ‘Kosmos’.[6] He loves us so much that He laid down His life for us (John 15). God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten, his only natural, his only sired Son to die so that we may live.

I can’t imagine how much this must hurt God that some of us do actually perish. I am a parent. Many of us are parents here. Think about this scenario for a moment. The house across the street is on fire; there are children asleep in that house. Your child is able to save them. Your son or daughter – your ONLY son or daughter can reach them so you encourage her “…Go, go, go! Save those people.”

Your daughter goes. She goes. She suffers every peril in that burning house that everyone else in there is suffering (Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:14; Luke 4). There is the smoke – the deadly smoke, there is the fire, and there are the falling beams. She is successful. She gets to where the children are. She can see them. She is able to make an opening in the wall. She points them to the way out. She yells for them to walk through the opening in the wall. She has made a clear path so that all of the kids can be saved - and then she dies. Your daughter dies so that all these kids can be saved. Your child dies so that none of these kids need to die but – here’s the kicker: the children did not want to be saved. They died. She died so that they could be saved but – on purpose – they died. They did not need to die but they chose not to walk through the opening. They chose to die. Your daughter dies for them and they all die anyway; they refused to be saved.

This is what it is like for God when our loved one’s reject Him. He sent His son to this earth that is perishing. He sent His Son to this house that is on fire – and His Son died so that we may live but yet some still refuse His love for us and some still reject His Salvation. He sent Jesus not to condemn us to burn in the eternal house fire but to save us but like those children some of us refuse to obey Him and walk to safety. Some of us simply refuse to walk through that opening that Jesus died to make. John 3:18: “Those who believe in Him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already…” of their own accord because, 3:19, “people loved darkness rather than light.”

But today for those of us here I want to share the good news of John 3:16-17. Sure the house is on fire, sure Jesus died, but we, as long as we are still breathing have the opportunity to walk through the hole in the wall that He created through His death and resurrection. We can walk through the wall from certain death to certain life. All we need to do is believe in Him, obey Him, and walk through that wall to eternal life with the Father because “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only [begotten] Son, so that everyone who believe in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).

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[1] Martin Luther. Quoted in Lenki. P. 258.
[2] The Rev. Dr. David M. Wendel. "John 3:16" Saint Luke's Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado.February 17, 2008: http://www.saintlukes-cs.org/sermons/sermons-2008/Lent_II_08.shtm. Note I have only edited it very slightly here for stylistic purposes.
[3] Gail O’Day. NIB IX: The Gospel of Luke, The Gospel of John. ‘John’, p.552.
[4] Cf. Michael Ramsay. “Paul and the Human Condition as Reflected in Romans 1:18-32 and 2:1-16”. Available on-line at: http://www.sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Paul%20and%20the%20Human%20Condition
[5] Cf. N.T. Wright, “Romans and the Theology of Paul,” Pauline Theology, Volume III, ed. David M. Hay & E. Elizabeth Johnson, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995): 37.
[6] Gail O’Day. NIB IX: The Gospel of Luke, The Gospel of John. ‘John’, p.552.