WHAT IF
WHAT IF THERE WAS A GOD WHO DIDN’T LOVE ME?
DR. JIM DIXON
JOHN 3:16-17
DECEMBER 24, 2012
John 3:16 is certainly the best-known verse in the entire Bible. For many people, it is the only verse in the Bible they have heard. For some Christians it is the only verse in the Bible they have memorized. You can see the verse everywhere. You see it in sporting events; people put it on signs and hold it up. You can go to football games and when extra points are kicked or field goals are kicked, you see someone holding up John 3:16 in the crowd behind the goalposts. Some football players, such as Tim Tebow, inscribe John 3:16 in their war paint. You see the verse everywhere.
Scholars and theologians’ debate whether or not this verse, John 3:16, is a Christmas verse or whether it is an Easter verse. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.” Does that refer to the gift of the incarnation? Does that refer to the gift of Christmas? Does that refer to God sending his Son into the world and the birth of Christ in Bethlehem? Or does it refer to Calvary? Does it refer to God’s giving of his Son on the cross for the forgiveness of sins and for the sin of the world? God gave his Son in both of these ways. God gave his Son at Christmas. God gave his Son at Easter. You need to look at any verse in the Bible contextually. When you look at John 3:16 contextually, clearly the focus is Christmas. It is about sending his Son into the world. For God sent his Son into the world, it says, and in the very next verse, John 3:17, it says, “God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.”
We look at the love of God today. We look at the love of God and how through Christ we see the love of God. I would like us to look at two aspects of God’s love. First of all, we will look at the scope of God’s love. God’s love has great scope. What we learn from John 3:16 is that God so loved the world. This is the scope of his love. The Greek word in John 3:16 is “kosmon,” the word from which we get our word cosmos. Sometimes the word cosmos can refer to the galactic systems and the whole of creation, the universe itself. But in the first century, oftentimes the word cosmos was used in a different way. You really only know the meaning contextually again. Sometimes the word cosmos referred simply to mankind, human beings, male and female, the world of people, the cosmos.
Clearly that is the way the word is being used in John 3:16. God so loved the world of people. God so loved human kind. God loves all people. It doesn’t matter what your race is. It doesn’t matter whether you are red, or yellow, or black, or white. It doesn’t matter what your gender is, whether you are male or female. God loves you. It doesn’t matter what your socio-economic condition is, whether you are rich or whether you are poor. It doesn’t matter whether you are highly skilled or not so skilled. It doesn’t matter how you look. It doesn’t matter whether you are really good-looking or kind of ugly. God loves you. His love has scope. It has great scope. Even if you have done some horrible things in your life, God loves you. Because his love has such scope it includes all the people in the world. God so loved the cosmos, all the people of the world.
I know all of you have heard of Antonio Stradivari. Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644. He died in 1737. He lived for 93 years. Antonio Stradivari was a maker of violins. He was not well-to-do; in fact, he was very poor. He could not afford the fine wood that most people who crafted violins used in the construction of the instrument. He couldn’t even afford discarded lumber. What Antonio Stradivari used in the making of his violins was driftwood. He picked up driftwood, wood that had been blown apart by storms, broken off branches, and wood that had been tossed by waves, wood that had been soaked, and wood that had come ashore.
To this day, scientists do not understand, musicians do not understand, what the process was that Stradivari used to treat the wood, but he had some kind of a compound, some kind of a chemical that he used that made the wood extraordinary. We know that microbes had eaten away at the cellular structure of this driftwood, creating fibrous infrastructures that produced melodious and rich sounds. He, through his treatment of the wood, brought the most beautiful music to the world.
Today, if you have a Stradivarius violin, that violin is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars. They were the finest violins that the world had ever seen. I hope you understand that this child born in Bethlehem, our Lord Jesus in a sense is like Antonio Stradivari. He can take driftwood and do amazing things with it. He can take driftwood and make incredible, incomprehensible music.
Maybe you feel like you have been beaten up by the storms of life. Maybe you feel like you have been tossed by the waves. Maybe you feel like you have been cast ashore. Maybe you feel rejected. Maybe you feel guilty because of things you have done. Christ loves you. His scope includes you. He, if you would let him, wants to come, and make of you something incredible. He wants to make beautiful music through you.
You can look at 2 Chronicles, chapter 33, and read about the story of King Manasseh. King Manasseh, King of Judah, the evil, wicked king who was taken captive by the Assyrians, incarcerated in Babylon, and thrown in a dungeon there. He cried out to God for forgiveness. God, foreknowing that one day his Son would die for Manasseh and for all the people of the world for all time, forgave him. He forgave Manasseh. You can go to the book of Acts and you can look in the ninth chapter and read about the Apostle Paul. Paul had been authorized, empowered by the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, to go and seize Christians and to persecute Christians, and to bind up Christians in chains and to drag them to Jerusalem for trial, for incarceration, and sometimes for execution. On the Damascus road, God cried out to Paul and forgave him because he loves everybody in this world. His love has scope. He actually forgave Paul and called Paul to great office and great ministry in this world. Christ can make music out of driftwood.
I know that many of you have heard of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who died in 1941 at the age of 81. He had been the Prime Minister of Poland, but also one of the greatest pianists of the world. He gave concerts all over the world. He performed in one concert in New York City. It may or may not be true, but this story is oftentimes told about a concert in New York City. It was a formal event. Families were there and one mom and dad had brought their nine-year-old boy. Suddenly they couldn’t find him. He had somehow slipped away. They wondered, “Where has he gone to? What is he doing now?” The concert hadn’t begun yet. They looked up on stage and to their shock, their little boy was going up onto the stage to the empty grand piano that was awaiting Paderewski.
Their little boy went up and sat down at the piano bench and started playing “Chopsticks.” The whole place started laughing. Then Paderewski came from backstage and came up behind the boy quietly. He came behind him and began playing beautiful music, turning “Chopsticks” into a masterpiece, and whispering to the boy, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.” I don’t know about you, but I have often thought when I hear that story that I am the one playing “Chopsticks.” I know that as I look at all the people in the world and all the talents in the world, I feel very much like I am just playing “Chopsticks.”
When I was five years old, I gave my heart to Jesus and I asked him to be my Lord and Savior. We have played some music together and it has all been him. It has all been him as I have fumbled along with “Chopsticks.” He wants to do that with you. His love includes all of us. He wants to come alongside of you and to play beautiful music. This is the love, and the scope of his love. It doesn’t matter how talented you are or what talent you lack—he loves you.
I want to look, secondly and finally, at the depth of God’s love. God’s love not only has scope. God so loved the world that God’s love has depth, great depth. God so loved the world that he gave. He gave. He gave his son through the incarnation. I don’t think any of us could possibly imagine the cost of that gift and what it meant to the father and the son to give this gift. They had shared love for each other; it says in John seventeen, love for each other before the worlds were made, before the cosmos was made, before the creation began, they had shared love for each other. They had shared glory before the angelic realm and angelic host. Jehovah Sabaoth. They had shared the glory of the Lord of Hosts together.
For the Son to come and to become human, for the infinite to become finite, for the Creator to come to the creation is an incomprehensible gift, and incomprehensible sacrifice. But he came. He came to our world, born in a humble manger. He took our flesh upon himself, that is what incarnation refers to, in flesh. He lived among us, experienced our pain, our joy, and our sorrow. He laughed and he wept. He experienced all the things that as humans we experience. He experienced rejection and ultimately death on a cross for you and for me. This is the depth of his love, incomprehensible depth to his love.
I read some time ago the story of a man named William Dixon. If you are visitor, you might be thinking, “Well, wait a minute, isn’t that the pastor’s name?” Yes, my name is Dixon. I don’t know whether I am related to William Dixon or not. I do know that William Dixon lived in England and his parents and grandparents had lived in Scotland. I know that my heritage comes from England and Scotland so there may be a relationship there. This story took place in 1929. William Dixon lived in the little town of Brackenthwaite in the Lake District of England in Cumbria. He had hard life. He was still a young man, but it had been a hard life because his wife had died from an illness that had been so hard and so long. He loved his wife more than he loved his own life. They were best friends in this world. To lose her was like losing his very own life. He was a Christian. He had given his heart to Jesus Christ when he was very young. He had served Christ in this world and through the church. He would often ask the Lord in his prayers why he had to undergo such pain and to lose his best friend, his wife. He had also lost his son and his daughter. They had died when the Bubonic plague swept over that part of Europe.
Before Dr. Fleming discovered and created penicillin, so many people died of illness and disease. It was a very rare person who lived a very long life. William Dixon was all alone now, living in this little town of Brackenthwaite. His next-door neighbor was a grandfather who was raising his grandson. The grandson’s parents had died in the plague as so many did. This little boy only had his grandfather to raise him.
One night, William Dixon woke up and saw a light through the window. He looked out and saw that the grandfather’s house right next to his was on fire and the flames were raging. He ran out and saw that the fire already had advanced almost to the point of consuming the house, but he ran into the house. He loved that grandfather and he loved that little boy. He ran into the house seeking to rescue them. He went upstairs but it was too late. The grandfather had already died, but the grandson was alive. He gathered him in his arms. He was choking in the midst of the fire. The staircase fell away as it was consumed by fire. He didn’t know how he would get out of the house. The drainpipe that came down the side of the house was so hot he couldn’t touch it. But he thought, “This is the only way I am going to be able to get this little boy down.”
He gathered the little boy in his arms, held him to his chest, using his elbows to hold him in. He put both hands on that drainpipe and it burned the flesh right off of his hands. He went slowly down the drainpipe, not wanting the boy to fall. He saved that boy’s life. They had a custody trial shortly after that event and William Dixon petitioned to adopt this little boy. There were no other family members. When the judge said, “What credentials do you have? Why should I entrust this little boy to you?” William Dixon just held out his burned hands and that was proof enough of the depth of his love. That little boy was given to him to raise.
I think of Jesus and the love he has for you. I think of Jesus and the love he has for me—the hands that he showed to doubting Thomas in the upper room after that Easter Sunday and the nail-pierced hands and nail-pierced feet. His love is deep. His love has scope, but it is also deep. He has great love for you. God loved the world so much he gave his only begotten son.
His love has great scope and great depth. All of his teaching reveals his love. All of the miracles he performed reveal his love. His death on the cross reveals his love for you. His resurrection from the dead reveals his power. He is the hope of the world. His love can transform us. His love has that power.
There is a cathedral in Fribourg, Switzerland called the St. Nicholas Cathedral, kind of an appropriate name for the Christmas season. The St. Nicholas Cathedral has been standing there since the year 1283. That is when they began to build the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Fribourg, Switzerland. It has one of the most famous pipe organs in the world today. You can see the pipes as they look today. The organ has, over the centuries, been transformed many times. In the year 1847 the custodian of the St. Nicholas Cathedral thought he was all alone inside the cathedral. He thought the doors were locked. He was up in the loft by the organ. He heard footsteps going up the stone stairs to where he was. He turned and saw a man come into the loft. This man was, perhaps, in his thirties. He looked tired. He looked exhausted. His clothes were worn and they looked kind of shabby. The man said, “I have travelled a great distance hoping that I might play the great organ here at St. Nicholas.”
The custodian said, “I am sorry sir, but no, you cannot play this instrument. It is a very, very special instrument.” This man said, “I played this instrument when I was twelve years old, right here. I have longed to return and play it again. I wondered if I could.” The custodian said, “No,” but the man begged. Finally, the custodian relented. So, this man sat down and began to play the great pipe organ at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Fribourg, Switzerland. The music was so rapturous. The music was so powerful. It was like the melody just filled the cathedral. It was the most beautiful music that the custodian had ever heard. He went up to this man and said, “What is your name?” He said, “Felix Mendelssohn.”
Felix Mendelssohn was one of the most famous conductors, composers, pianists, and organists in the world. The custodian thought to himself, “What a near tragedy that I almost kept a master from bringing his music into my sanctuary. I almost kept a master from playing his music in my cathedral.” Christ, I know, wants to play his music in the sanctuary of your life. Christ wants to play his music in the cathedral of your life. His music is beautiful, but you must allow him in. This is the invitation of Christmas. He wants to come into your life and he wants to play his music. It is a wonderful opportunity. What an amazing opportunity Christmas is. The greatest gift the world has ever seen.
As we close, I have one more story. It took place in 1884 when Leland Stanford, Jr. died. He was in Europe, a young man travelling around Europe. He had been a brilliant student who loved education. He got typhoid fever as he was travelling in Europe and he died. Leland Stanford, Jr.’s father Leland Stanford, Sr. and his wife were just devastated. They had lost their son. They were very wealthy. It was Leland Stanford, Sr. who had built the Central Pacific Railroad. They were among the wealthiest people in America, though not many people knew them. They thought, “How can we honor our son?”
They went to Harvard University in 1884 and said, “Our son has died and he loved education. He was a great scholar, and we would like to do something in memory of him.” Charles Elliot, who was the president at Harvard in 1884, said, “I don’t know what you would like to do, but maybe you would like to provide a scholarship for a student so that every year a new student could come to Harvard University. It could be a scholarship in your name.” Charles Elliot did not know or understand exactly who Leland Stanford Sr. was and how much money he had. Leland Stanford said, “Thank you for that offer. My wife and I will think about that.”
You know what happened. They went to California where they decided to birth a new college, a new university with their great wealth. They established and founded, in Palo Alto, California, Stanford University, another fine academic institution. They poured millions of dollars into the birth of that school.
Life is filled with stories of missed opportunities. I don’t want there to be missed opportunities tonight. I don’t want there to be missed opportunities because the greatest gift you could ever receive is available tonight. It is a gift of sins forgiven no matter what you have done—past sins, present sins, even future sins. It is the gift of being washed whiter than snow. It is a gift of heaven itself. It is the gift of eternal life. It is the gift of the kingdom of God and a cause worth living for. This is the greatest gift that has ever been offered. It is being offered tonight. Maybe it is a gift you have never opened, never received. Perhaps you have never taken that step of faith and made that commitment of your life. You can do it tonight. As we close, as we are quiet, and as we pray, I want to give you a chance to, in your own heart, pray a prayer with me asking Jesus to give you his gift, forgive your sins, save your soul, secure it for heaven, and give you, his kingdom. Let’s pray together.