John 3 DT 8.26.08 by Kelly Kang (Gracepoint Fellowship Church – Berkeley):

John 3:16 “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.”

What did God do because He so loved the world? He did not heal people of all their diseases. He did not solve world crises. He did not get rid of world hunger. He did not end poverty. He did not establish a perfect government. He did not end all forms of suffering. Although He could have done all of that, He came to die so that people will not perish and have eternal life.

What did God do because He loved me? He did not get rid of all my problems. He did not make my life absent of stress. He did not heal all my hurts. He did not necessarily protect me from all harm. He did not make me into a perfect, sinless person without any flaws. He died on the cross.

This means the greatest proof of his love for me is ALWAYS the cross – not a safe and secure life. It’s easy to feel loved by God when good things happen, when problems are resolved, when whatever is causing me to fear and become anxious goes away. But when those things don’t happen, we can be led to wonder about God’s love for us. This is because we forget that our greatest problem is sin and that this problem has been taken care of by Jesus. I think it’s also because we fail to personalize the cross. There are some people who come to our church for years, listen to the preaching, benefit from all that the church has to offer but act like they have nothing to do with the people of this church who sacrifice day in and day out to make this church possible. They fail to personalize it. Like these people, we often treat our salvation like gravity or air that we breathe day in and day out and take it for granted. We don’t pause to think about what an amazing thing it is that God gave His most precious, His one and only Son, for me. I think this is another reason why when things aren’t going well in our lives, we don’t feel loved by God and feel like we have been given a rotten lot in life.

Imagine if someone came up with cure for all forms of cancer. There will be a huge difference between a cancer patient and a non-patient in their appreciation and how personal this news is for them.

Joy, amazement and gratitude towards the gospel is directly dependent on how much I know myself to be a sinner. Whenever I feel lack of joy or lack of God’s favor over my life, I just need to look to the cross.

I love the cross of Jesus, It tells me what I am –
A viler and guilty creature, Saved only through the lamb;
No righteousness nor merit, No beauty can I plead;
Yet in the cross I glory, My title there I read.