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Author: Rev. Jean Baptiste Rock, Ph.D.
May the word of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer.
In the name of the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated.
Good morning, my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is a blessing to worship God with you in your house of prayer.
Now, I would like to reflect on one of the most famous verses in the Bible that we found in today’s gospel, John 3: 14-21.
Do you know which particular verse I am going to reflect on?
John 3:16,
“God so loves the world; he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.”
Can you repeat it with me?
“God loves the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.
How do we feel when we hear or read this passage? How do we feel when we meditate on it?
Don’t we feel some comfort, encouragement, and hope?
This is what I feel when I read it and meditate on it.
I have to tell you the first person who heard this passage was shocked.
That person was named Nicodemus.
At that moment, Nicodemus was one of the most prestigious, intellectual, and wealthy persons in Israel.
He was the ruler of the Jews. He was a Pharisee.
As a Pharisee, he expected to see the Son of Man, the Messiah, coming to empower the Nation of Israel and punish the other nations for not following the Law and practicing the Sabbath.
So, when Nicodemus heard God loves the world, he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life; he was surprised.
You can imagine that Nicodemus might ask why God would not give eternal life only to the people who follow the Law and practice the Sabbath, the people who read and teach his word, and the people who pray to him daily.
Why would God give eternal to everybody who just believes in his Son?
How could that possibly be?
Nicodemus, as the teacher of Israel, should have known better; he should have known the reason why God gives eternal life to anyone who believes in his Son is that He loves not only a portion of the world but also the whole world loves the entire humanity, the whole mankind.
The first lesson we can learn from this passage is that eternal life does not depend on our knowledge, our possessions, our identity, or our race; it does depend only on God, who decided to give his beloved Son to be lifted on the cross as the serpent of bronze was lifted on a pole by Moses in the wilderness, so that whoever, anyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
The second lesson we can learn is that we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, therefore we receive the eternal life by the grace of God through faith, it does not depend on ourselves, it is a gift of God, Ephesians 2:8.
The eternal life is for the people who have knowledge and high education; it is also for those who don’t have any education.
The eternal life is for the wealthy people; it is also for the poor.
The eternal life is for all.
Listen to that carefully: The free offer of God, meaning eternal life, is narrow enough to exclude the most moral religious person who does not believe. Do you get that?
At the same time, the free offer of God, which is eternal life, is wide enough to include the worst sinner who believes, and Paul said he was one of them.
He was one of the chief sinners who persecuted the Christians, and on the road of his life, he believed in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to the point he said, if I live, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Also, Nicodemus realized this passage, John 3:16, was not a shock for him anymore; on the road of his life, in John 19, he became a believer in Jesus.
He showed up with Joseph Arimathea to bury our Savior, and if we keep believing in Jesus, we may see him in heaven.
What matters is to believe in Jesus, to trust in Jesus, obey him, and follow him all day long; there is no other way; according to the book of Acts chapter 4: 12, there is only one way we can be saved, only through the Son of God Jesus Christ.
I want you to remember that God knew we could never earn eternal life with our knowledge or our possessions; he gave Jesus in our place to suffer. On the cross, he was humiliated, he was bloody, he was a mess. He endured all that we deserved, including death on the cross, and God, with his mighty hand, raised him from the dead to redeem and save us.
“God so loves the world, he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life.” Amen.
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