Sunday, June 20, 2026
Scripture: John 3:16-21
Sermon Title: “God is Love”
We are in the middle of birthday week in our family. 50% of my household has the same birthday and 75% of my household has a birthday within 7 days of each other. And we have Father’s Day today as well. It’s certainly been a week of celebrating and eating in our house. Thank you to many of you who have sent cards or wished us happy birthdays. We appreciate it so much.
Our mailbox and porch have been filled with cards and packages. In our culture, it’s common for gifts to be given for all sorts of celebrations, not just birthdays. Now you might not receive gifts as much as an adult, but I want you to think back to the best gift you have ever received. Maybe it was a birthday gift or a Christmas gift as a child. As you got older, maybe it was a graduation gift. Maybe when you turned 16 it was a car. Maybe it was a financial gift when you got married.Since my oldest Ellie was born on my birthday, I always say Ellie was the greatest birthday gift I ever received.
Some in our church have received the amazing gift of organ donation. A gift that literally saved their lives. Whatever amazing gift you have ever received, we serve a God who loves us so much, that he sent us the best gift of all, his Son Jesus Christ.
If you’ve been with us this month, we’ve been in a series called “VBS for grownups.” VBS was the week of June 8th, but us grownups are still learning the lessons the children learned at Vacation Bible School. Each week we’ve been digger a little deeper into the stories, scriptures, and lessons the kids learned at VBS.
First, we learned God is our Creator. We looked at the creation story and what it means for God to create and at it means for us to be good stewards of creation.
Then we learned that God knows everything. We talked about this idea of God being all present and all knowing. We also talked about how as followers of Christ we should be present in one another’s lives and get to know one another deeply.
Then last week we talked about how God is our Safe Place. We looked at the Psalm where David described God as his refuge. And we talked about how Church has not always been a safe place for all people. We talked about what it means for us as followers of Jesus Christ to be a safe place; a place of refuge for others.
Today’s lesson is “God is love.”
Our scripture lesson for today includes the most famous verse in all of scripture. 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.” (John 3:16, NIV) I’m guessing many of you learned this verse as a child and still have it memorized. If not this exact version, but a different version.Maybe it was the King James Version. It doesn’t matter what version you learned, it still describes the great gift and love of God.
We see this verse often on signs in crowds outside stadiums for various sporting events. We know this verse, but I think we often forget what becomes before and after this verse.
First, it’s important to know that John’s Gospel is very different from the other three gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell what happened. John’s Gospel, although it tells what happened is a lot more interested in the meaning behind what happened.
John 3:16 and the verses after John 3:16 come after Jesus has an encounter with a man named Nicodemus.
Nicodemus was a Pharisee. And if you’ve ever spent much time reading the Gospels, you know that the Pharisees did not come across well in the gospels. They were often the ones questioning everything Jesus did and said.
And yet, Nicodemus seems different than all the other Pharisees. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. One thing we can gather about this is that Nicodemus probably didn’t want other Pharisees to see him meeting with Jesus, so he met with him at night.
And unlike many of the other Pharisees, Nicodemus doesn’t come trying to trap Jesus or look down on Jesus. No, quite the opposite. Nicodemus says to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” (John 3:2, NIV)
Then Jesus explains to Nicodemus that he must be “born again.” (John 3:3, NIV)
Nicodemus understandably is very confused by this statement. He says, “How can someone be born when they are old? Surely, they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born.” (John 3:4, NIV)
As I said, since it was birthday week in our family, we’ve spent a lot of time looking at pictures and videos of the day Ellie was born. Many of you know that before I had Ellie, I had a two-yearjourney of infertility, followed by the second trimester loss of our first baby. Because of this, Ellie’s birth was quite emotional. We were all a blubbering mess of tears. I can still remember looking at Jesse and saying, “Jesse we have a baby!”
And so yes, I understand that physically your birth is a one-time thing. You cannot be physically born again.
But Jesus is not talking about a physical birth. Jesus is talking about a spiritual birth.
Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” (John 5:5)
Jesus then mentions a story from the Torah, which are the first 5 books of the Bible, Genesis – Deuteronomy. This is a story Nicodemus would have surely been aware of as a Pharisee, but a story we might have forgotten. Of all the books in the Torah, Number and Leviticus are probably the least read, and this is a story from the Book of Numbers. Numbers is not a book usually named as favorite book of the Bible.
In this story from Numbers, a plague of snakes comes, and the Israelites are bitten, and many die. But then the Lord instructs Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole, and anyone who looks at it will be saved.
Keeping this story in mind, Jesus says to Nicodemus “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3:14-15)
Can you imagine if you were bitten by a venomous snake and all you had to do was look at this bronze snake and you would live?
Now most of us have never been bitten by a snake or will ever be bitten by a snake. But we have all experienced the venom of sin in some shape or form in our lives. We have hurt ourselves, God, and others. Sometimes by things we have said or done, sometimes our sins have been a failure to act or speak up. And here Jesus is saying when we look to Jesus, just at the Israelites looked at the bronze snake, we too will live and have eternal life. Just as the bronze snake was the Israelites cure for their snake bites, Jesus and the cross are the cure for our sin.
One of my favorite Easter Hymns in “Lift Hight the Cross.” The words of the chorus are, “Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim, til all the world adore his sacred name.” If we lift high the cross, and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, we too will be saved like the Israelites. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus and be saved from the snakes in our lives. Snakes like addiction, bitterness, anger, injustice, oppression, you name it.
So all this is the discussion that comes before John 3:16 where the writer of the Gospel of John tells us, “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.” (John 3:16, NIV)
Why did God send Jesus? Because of God’s great love for us. You are so loved by the God of the universe, that God sent his one and only son to live and dwell among us so that we might have eternal life.
This verse is a verse of hope and good news. It’s a verse about the love of God. That you are so loved by the God of the Universe, that God would send his only son to be with us, God in the flesh. This is the greatest gift. All because of God’s great love for us.
Sadly, though, sometimes for some people this verse brings images of fear of Hell instead of the love of God.
We often quote John 3:16, but we forget John 3:17. So I want us to hear this verse as well this morning. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17, NIV)
Have you ever felt condemned? Maybe you messed up big. Maybe you did nothing wrong, but others condemned you because of who you are or your family. I love these words of John 3:17 reminding us that God did not send his Son to condemn the world, but to save the world.
Our simple VBS Lesson is “God is Love.” God sent his Son, the cure for sin because of God’s great love for us. God sent his Son, the cure for sin and death, not to condemn us, but to save us. That is good news.
In the Methodist Church, the one word that seems to sum up our faith is “grace.” We are big on grace. Grace is simply “the undeserved love of God.” This means there is nothing we could do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we could do to make God love us any less. We don’t earn God’s love. It is freely given.
Something unique to our faith as Methodists is this idea of Prevenient, Justifying, and Sanctifying Grace.
Prevenient Grace is this idea of God’s grace in your life, specifically, God’s love in your life, before you even know God. This is God’s love wooing you to God.
Then we have justifying grace, this is the grace when you decide to follow Jesus. This would be what Jesus is talking about with Nicodemus when he talks about being born again of water and the Spirit.
And some denominations really focus on this justifying grace. They focus on the moment when you decide to follow Jesus. This justifying or “born again” moment. And that is great. But there is so much more to our faith than this one-time moment. We as Methodists believe in sanctifying grace. This is the grace for us as followers of Jesus Christ all the rest of our lives. This is us becoming more and more and more like Jesus Christ.
For Nicodemus, we can’t know for certain, but it seems like he may have had this justifying grace moment after this encounter with Jesus.
We actually see Nicodemus show up later in John’s Gospel as well after the crucifixion. John 19:38- 40 tells us this. “Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.” (NIV)
Based on this, I would say, Nicodemus was forever changed by his encounter with Jesus. He was forever changed by the love of God. So much so that when Jesus was buried, he helped care for the body of Jesus. This is sanctifying grace; this is continuing to grow in love of God.
Remember our VBS lesson is “God is Love.” The God of the universe loves you so much that God sent his son to live and dwell among us and even die to give us life.
Perhaps right now you are in the prevenient grace part of your journey with God. You are experiencing the love of God, but you still have questions and you aren’t sure. Maybe you feel confused like Nicodemus. I want you to know if that’s you, you are still welcome here. Keep showing up, keep asking questions. Keep experiencing the love of God.
Maybe right now you are in the stage of life where you are saying “Yes” to following Jesus. You are experiencing being born again of water and the spirit. If that is you right now, share that with someone that you have recently decided to follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior. We want to celebrate that decision with you.
Or maybe, for most of us I’m guessing, we’re in the stage of sanctifying grace. We have experienced the love of God in our life and are continuing to grow and be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.
And the thing is, when we have experienced the transforming love of God, the self-sacrificiallove of a God who sends us his Son, the God who comes not to condemn us, but to save us, we can’t help but want to love others.
We are called to love God as God has loved us. We are called not to condemn others, because God does not condemn us. We are simply called to love.
How have you experienced the love of God in your life? And how is God calling you to love others?
Each week I’ve been giving a little bit of homework. Some weeks have been harder than others. Who would have guessed the hardest assignment would be to sit in a different pew? I think this week might be harder. I want you to reflect on your faith. Reflect on your relationship with Christ. Think about where you have experienced the love of God. Think about where you are in the journey of grace: prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace.
And think about what would be the next step in your faith journey? I can’t answer this for you;this is between you and God. What is the next step for you? And if God is love, and you have experienced the love of God, how God is calling you to share the love of God with someone else? How is God calling you not to condemn, but to love?
Think and pray about that with God this week.
Now, repeat after me our VBS lessons.
God is our Creator.
God Knows Everything.
God is our Safe Place.
God is Love.
Amen