God is Loving and Just

Today we’re finishing Jesus’ conversation with the religious leader named Nicodemus in John 3 and looking at the most famous verse in the entire Bible. Even if you didn’t grow up in church—if you grew up in North America, chances are you’re familiar with John 3:16. Both Christians and non-Christians are attracted to this verse.

On one level, it’s easy to see why: the beginning makes us feel good about ourselves and the end makes us feel hopeful about ourselves—we are so loved by the God of the universe that he went to incredible lengths for us to have eternal life with him.

But the assumptions underneath John 3:16 don’t quite resonate with our culture the same way. Why would we perish without believing in God’s Son? Why wouldn’t he just bless every one of us with eternal life if he loves us so much?

People are drawn to John 3:16 because of the emphasis on God’s love. And yet, one of the biggest reasons why many don’t submit their lives to Jesus and truly follow him is because of their understanding of God’s judgment. And that’s also present in this verse.

Macie and our kids, and her brother Zac are out of town this weekend. They went to a cousin’s wedding in Kentucky. And on one level, Macie was really excited to spend time with her parents and see some of her extended family.

But she was also dreading the drive to Kentucky. Apparently a 3 year old and a 1 year old stuck in the back of a Corolla that’s too small for her to squeeze back there and calm them down when they start competing on who can cry louder isn’t a great combination for a restful drive.

In the week leading up to the trip, as much as Macie wanted to be looking forward to the time with family, she couldn’t think about much else than how hard that drive might be. Rather than seeing the two parts of the trip together as a good thing, her fixation on the drive was leading her to see it all as a bad thing.

I think we can run into a similar issue when we’re faced with how God reveals himself in the Bible and what it means to relate to him. On one level, we’re big fans of his love. That seems to benefit us well, so we have no problem getting on board with that kind of God.

But then there’s that judgment thing. All the talk about sin, and death, and hell. And rather then see God’s judgment in combination with his love (and honestly through the lens of his love), we can focus exclusively on God’s wrath in a way that ultimately distorts our entire understanding of who he is.

I’m a pastor, and I also work for a marketing company. You can get to know me for both of the things I do, or you can fixate on one. If you think too much just about how I work in marketing, it could lead you to wonder what my actual motivations are as a pastor. Am I just here to “sell my brand”? Can you really trust me?

We think it’s unfair when someone assumes to know everything about us because of just one piece of information. That distorts their whole perspective. And in the same way, it’s unfair—it’s not helpful—to assume you understand God’s character based off the one part you don’t like. Seeing his attributes in isolation from one another actually keeps us from understanding any of them properly.

John 3:16 and the verses around it help us synthesize God’s love and his wrath, primarily by rooting his wrath in the virtue of justice. So, whether you struggle with the idea of God’s judgment or you struggle to trust how he could fully love you, or you struggle to see how these two attributes of God shape the life of a Christian, what I want to do this morning is use verse 16 and what follows as a launching point for understanding the breadth of who God is, who we are, what he’s done for us, and what it means to believe in him. Let’s start by reading verse 16.

John 3:16 ESV

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

The way verse 16 starts is why everyone likes it: “For God so loved the world.” But do you notice what’s missing here? There’s no mention of why he loves the world. I mean, God, have you seen the world? It doesn’t seem like we’ve done much to earn or justify God’s love throughout human history. Even those of us who claim to love him still do so very imperfectly and fall short all the time. We’re so quick to ask God why he would allow people to perish in the world, but we’re less quick to ask why he would love anyone in the world.

Have you ever been forgiven by someone who you really hurt? Maybe it wasn’t intentional; maybe it was. But when you’ve wronged someone and you’re forgiven—when they tell you they love you anyway—when you haven’t done anything to earn that love—their love for you isn’t a reflection of who you are; it’s a reflection of who they are.

We can read a phrase like, “For God so loved the world”, and if we’re not careful, we read into it that we must be really worthy of that love. And when we do that, we start to presume that we deserve God’s love, which is why, when he disciplines us, when we read about his judgment or his wrath against sin, or him telling us to change this way or that way about our lives, our reaction is to think, “Woah, God, don’t you know who we are? I thought you said you loved us!”

But God’s love for the world doesn’t begin with the world being special. It’s rooted in the fact that God is special. That’s why we see the Greek word agapē used to describe God’s love here. That word describes an unconditional kind of love. John 3:16 happens, not because we’ve earned God’s love but because God is love. It’s not a reaction toward us; it’s an attribute within him. And it because of how special our God is that we have inherent value. He loved us so much that he made us in his image!

If we think about the gospel, if we try to understand John 3:16 as being primarily about us, then we’re going to miss the biblical concept of grace, and we’re going to continue to struggle with a God that judges and disciplines the world he also says he loves. If you see yourself as the epicenter of the story, you’ll miss the main point about the Bible.

Like if you watched a Superman movie, but you only ever focused on the scenes with Lex Luthor in them. If that’s the only character you really followed, if you assumed the movie was about him rather than Superman, then there’s a good chance you’ll walk away from the movie thinking, “Lex had some good points.” You might even think of him as the “misunderstood good guy” just trying to protect the world from a dangerous alien.

Our theology of God has a natural tendency to drift toward being man centered. That’s why we have to start John 3:16 with acknowledging how great our heavenly Father is. He truly loves the world, and John measures that love by saying it led him to sacrifice something he loves fully and perfectly: His only Son, the second member of the Trinity: Jesus Christ. John wants us to feel the depth of God’s love and the weight of his gift, which is why he calls out Jesus as his only Son.

But then it’s at this point in the verse that what’s only been implied up until now is made explicit: without believing in Jesus, we will perish. So, yes, God loves the world. But also, yes, the world is under God’s judgment. And the order matters here. Verse 16 starts with God’s love to help provide the context for understanding his judgment. If we take away God’s love for the world, which is why he sends his Son for us to believe in him and have eternal life, then all we’re left with in the verse is, “we will perish.”

Think of a trial where someone’s convicted for assault. When that person is sentenced for their crime, the victim and his family are often there as witnesses. It’s because of the care and love toward the person who was wronged that punishing the wrongdoer isn’t just seen as judgment. It’s viewed as justice.

Because God is love, and he loves the world, him punishing the wrong things in the world isn’t just a matter of judgment for wrong action; it’s justice for those who have been wronged. And that’s both for us, and for God.

It’s a wonderful thing to know that every person who has hurt you, every bad thing that has happened to you has not gone unnoticed by God. If you’re struggling today feeling like you’ve been beaten down and no one’s fighting for you, the just God of the Bible has promised that one day vengeance will be his, that one day he will make all things new and creation will be set free from it’s bondage to the effects of sin.

But we’re not the only ones that have been wronged. We’ve first and foremost wronged God. That’s what sin is. In our thoughts, feelings, and actions, we’re masters at finding ways to replace his rule in our lives with our own. And so our sin against a holy, righteous God who lovingly made us in his image is also a matter of justice. It’s a wrong that needs to be righted.

And this creates a problem. In the courtroom, the person who committed the assault is judged, so that justice might be given to help the victim. In John 3:16, we’re both the wrongdoer and the person needing help. We stand condemned for our sin against God, but in order for God to justly remove what’s wrong in the world, he would have to remove the people he loves in the world because our source of sin—as we’ve seen throughout chapter 3—is our very hearts.

But then you might ask, “If he loves us, why can’t he just overlook our sin?” Well, there’s two sides to that answer. On one side, God is righteous, so he must punish sin rather than ignore wrongdoing. That would be an injustice, and we’ve already established that justice is something we value and need.

But on the other side, just like I wouldn’t be a loving father if I didn’t prevent my kids from touching the stove, God wouldn’t be loving if he didn’t fight against everything that brings harm to those he loves. And our sin is something that brings us harm because it keeps us separated from the God who is the greatest possible good for us.

Sin, by definition, is a disordered affection that draws us away from seeing and savoring the God who made us to enjoy and rest in him. And so he is lovingly just to want to punish and remove it.

But rather than removing sin by ending us, God’s love compelled him to send his Son to take our place. God’s love requires his justice, and that’s why our condition requires his rescue. Let’s keep reading in verses 17-18.

John 3:17–18 ESV

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

In these two verses, Jesus isn’t just summarizing why he came to us; he’s also summarizing the human condition. The gospel isn’t about Jesus stepping into a neutral situation, so he could save some and condemn others. Like we’ve seen earlier in John, and he confirms it for us here in verse 18, everyone is already condemned. Everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Over the last couple of weeks, from the end of John chapter 2 through the front half of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3, we’ve seen how we’re spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins, unable to come to God on our own. We’re all equally in need of a Savior. And that’s the situation Jesus stepped into when he took on flesh and was born as the Messiah.

He didn’t come to condemn the world. He came to rescue people out of the world. He didn’t come to stifle our lives. He came to give us new life. And this point is so important, because your perception of why Jesus came will shape the way you follow him. If you think of Jesus as coming to fix you, then you’ll measure you’re connection to him based on your performance for him. How much have you been “fixed”?

Macie took my car for their trip this past week because hers is missing the passenger side mirror because of an evil little trash can that was on Monroe St. Honestly, the way I talk about our cars as sermon illustrations makes us sound kinda like a mess, but that’s besides the point.

It would be easy for you to tell if her car is fixed. When you leave this morning, you can look at the silver Corolla across the street, and if there’s not a whole car there, then it’s still not fixed.

As long as you are on this earth, you will not be fully fixed. When we were first saved, we were not fixed. We were justified, which means we were declared righteous even though we’re not, because we get the righteousness of Jesus given to us and he has the penalty of our sin given to him. That’s why it’s called grace. We don’t deserve it.

And even after our salvation, we still struggle with sin. We still fail. We’re not more deserving than other people. Only Jesus is. But that same Jesus who justifies us also sanctifies us over the course of our lives as we walk with him. He gradually changes us to be more and more like him. We’re changing. We’re growing. And one day, we’ll be united with him forever, and we’ll move from being sanctified to being glorified. That’s when we get a “fixed” body. That’s when there’s no more sin.

But if you think Jesus came just to fix you and make you a better person, then on days you perform well you’ll feel close to him, and on days you struggle you’ll wonder if you even know him, or if he still loves you. And that’s because that type of relationship with God revolves around you, not him. If you relate to Jesus based off of how good of a person you think you are, then you’ll naturally look down upon others that don’t meet your standard of goodness.

You are not meant to put the weight of your relationship with Jesus on your ability to maintain it. You won’t be able to do it. And that’s why Jesus didn’t come to condemn us, and he didn’t come to fix us. He came to rescue us—to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

If I’m hanging off the side of a cliff, and you extend your hands out and pull me up, would it make sense for me to say, “Yes, I did it!”? No, of course not. Someone in need of rescue isn’t looking to perform. They’re looking for someone to perform for them. They’re not needing to trust in themselves. They need to trust in their rescuer.

And this fundamentally reorients what it means for us to be followers of Jesus. Like we’ve seen throughout Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, we can’t save ourselves. We need God to give us a new heart with a new desire for him. We have to be born again. Coming to Jesus requires us to acknowledge our need and our inability. And in the same way, living for Jesus requires us to acknowledge our need and rest in his ability.

We never stop depending on the work of our rescuer. Jesus didn’t come to save us and then send us off on our own. He’s still working in our lives, and I need him just as much today as I did the day I came to know him.

That means that we never leave the gospel. We never stop reflecting on our need and God’s provision through Christ. We never move past the story of Jesus living the life I couldn’t live, dying the death I deserved to die, and conquering my sin, so I can walk in his life. The gospel isn’t just the start of our Christian life. It’s the frame and the fuel for every part of the Christian life.

And as verse 18 points out, that new life is only experienced through belief in Jesus. Now, the theme of belief started all the way back at the end of chapter 2 when we saw the people witness Jesus performing miracles, and they believed in what he could do but didn’t commit themselves to him for who he is. They had the wrong kind of belief, and John 2:24 says Jesus didn’t accept it.

Then, through the first half of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, he tells Nicodemus that the only way to see and believe in Jesus for who he truly is, is that you must be born again. This is the doctrine we know as regeneration from places like Ezekiel 36 where God removes our heart of stone and gives us a soft heart of flesh. Only after explaining our need for this spiritual new birth does Jesus offer the invitation of John 3:16 for people to believe in him as the way to eternal life.

So, throughout each of the past few sections, we’ve learned a little more about what it means to believe in Jesus. And in verses 19-21 we see this all come to a head. At the end of the day, believing in Jesus requires loving his work more than our own. Let’s look one more time at our passage, starting in verse 19.

John 3:19–21 ESV

¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

At their core, these verses are meant to illustrate and further explain verse 18, which distinguishes between those who remain condemned and those who believe in the name of the only Son of God and are saved. What’s different about these two groups of people? Verses 19-20 first describe those who don’t come to the light (the light being Jesus). They might see the light, but they don’t like what the light illuminates.

Like one of those makeup mirrors that have 10x zoom and the brightest light known to man, just so you can see every little imperfection magnified across your face. Those are the worst. I don’t need to know how big the pores on my nose are. I avoid looking at those mirrors because I don’t like what I see.

And that’s how Jesus says he functions in our lives when we take a closer look at him. His light illuminates our darkness. His righteousness makes us incredibly aware of our sin. Ever since the garden of Eden, people have been hiding from God in their sin.

But this is where Jesus says something unexpected. He doesn’t say we avoid his light because we’re ashamed of our darkness. He says we avoid his light because we love our darkness. We love ruling our own lives more than submitting to his rule. We love our works more than his work, and we don’t want to be exposed for it. We don’t want our sense of self-rule to go away. So, we flee from the Savior.

We’re starting to get a sense for why we need to be born again, why we need God to give us a new heart with new desires that Jesus has been telling Nicodemus throughout the chapter. And we see how that plays out in verse 21.

John 3:21 ESV

²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

Verse 20 said those who do not come to the light do not want their works exposed. But verse 21 says those who do come to the light, those who believe in Jesus and are rescued, are not coming to the light for their works to be exposed—they’re coming for the work of Christ in their life to be exposed.

Because people who truly believe in Jesus believe it’s all because of Jesus. They love his work in their life more than their own, and the rest of their life is working out the salvation he has accomplished within them. They love seeing themselves in the light because it shows all that God has done to rescue them and make them more like him. He gets all the glory.

So, where are you this morning? No one likes to have their lives exposed and judged. But the good news in John chapter 3 is that the one who judges your works is also the only one who can justify your life. Our sin separates us from God. We couldn’t get to him, so he drew near to us. We didn’t want to come to him, so he gives his people a new heart, so we can freely desire him.

John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world.” In 1 John 2:15, the same author of the gospel of John warns us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” How can these two things go together? There’s no contradiction. Like we’ve seen, our hearts are prone to love the things of the world with a selfish desire for corruption. But God’s love for the world is made visible through Christ’s selfless love of redemption.

He invites you to believe and rest in who he is and what he’s done for you. Let’s pray.