#182 John 3:16-21 For God So Loved the World

On August 11, 2024 by Amy Burgin

Joy:
Episode #182 John 3:16-21

Welcome

Amy:
Welcome to The Christgazing Podcast. We are so glad you are here! I’m Amy Burgin.

Joy:
And I’m Joy Burgin.

Christgazing, kind of like stargazing, is the act of looking steadily and intently at Jesus. If you are anything like us, you desire to fix your eyes on Jesus amid the distractions and troubles of this world. This podcast makes room for us to do that. Amid a world of many words, we slow down here and make space for the God-breathed Words, the best words, the ones that rightly comfort, correct, and lead us. Each week, we read a portion of scripture several times and create stillness after each reading so we might also be still and know God more. We are in a series that takes us through the book of John.

Pour Out Your Heart to God

Amy:
Before we read, take time to share your heart with God. Maybe you have a list of questions for which you need answers—or a heart filled with grief, joy, desire, gratitude, anger, peace, or a mix of some of these things and more—whatever is on your mind, name it, and bring it to God in the next minute.

[Pause and pour out your heart to God]

What Does This Passage Say About God?

Joy:
As I read today’s passage, consider the question: What does this say about God?

John 3:16-21 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. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Again?

Take the next few minutes to consider what this says about God.

[Pause and know]

What Does This Passage Say About People?

Joy:
As I read the passage again, consider the question, what does this say about people?

Take a minute to consider what this says about people.

[Pause and know]

Lord, What Would You Have Me Know Or Do Today?

Joy:
As I read the passage for the last time, ask God, “Lord, what would you have me know or do today in response to this passage?”

Take a minute to ask God, “Lord, what would you have me know or do today?”

[Pause and listen]

Blessing

Amy:
Christgazer, the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. And may you keep your face turned toward Jesus today and know him more.

One Response

Amy:
John said Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save it. It might make a person ask, Then, what did God condemn? The answer resides in Romans 8, where it says through Christ on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh.

I’ll read it to you. Romans 8:1-4

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Those words from Romans 8:3 “what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,” reminds Martin Luther King Jr.’s address before the First Annual Institue on Non-Violence and Social Change held in Montgomery, Alabama in December of 1956. Dr. King said, “I agree agree that it is impossible to change a man’s internal feelings merely through law. But this really is not the intention of the law. The law does not seek to change one’s internal feelings; it seeks rather to control the external effects of those internal feelings For instance, the law cannot make a man love . . . but it can control his efforts to lynch.”

I agree with Dr. King. The law has no power over my heart. But as Romans 8 declares, there is a stronger law still, the law of the Spirit. C.S. Lewis provides a beautiful description of each of these laws in his fantasy novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In Chapter 13, titled Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, the evil witch explains the law of sin and death when she says, “Every traitor belongs to her as her lawful prey and that for every treachery, she has a right to a kill.” But then in Chapter 15, titled Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time, Aslan states, that “though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”

And this law of the Spirit not only has power over death but also the power to change a man’s heart. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Closing

Amy:
You can find a transcript of this episode and all our episodes at amyburgin.com. We’ll be back next week to go Christgazing together. Until then, don’t forget, when you put your trust in Christ, you are one in whom he dwells and delights, a dearly loved child of God. You are royalty in his strong and unshakeable kingdom. Though trouble abounds, Christ prevails, and so do you.