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“Not to Condemn!
or “The Motive, Method, and Means of Your Salvation”
John 3:16-18

 

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas

Fourth Sunday in Lent—March 11, 2018

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The Gospel Reading appointed for today, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, includes one of the most familiar verses of the entire Bible.  Perhaps it was the first verse of Scripture that you memorized.  It is often called “The Gospel in a Nutshell,” John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” 

The verses just after it are less well known but are also beautiful and comforting: “For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”  “Not to Condemn!”  Those three beautiful words are in themselves “The Gospel in a Nutshell”: “Not to Condemn!”

Every other religion in the world says, “If you DO this and that, and DON’T do this or that, IF you’re a good enough person, then MAYBE God MIGHT love you.”  But, God’s wonderful Good News is: “God sent his Son into the world NOT TO CONDEMN . . . but to SAVE.”

In these verses, Jesus tells us the motive, method, and means of your salvation:

The Motive—“For God so loved the world.”

The Method—“That he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

And the Means—“Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”

There is nothing more tragic than what the poets call “unrequited love.”  When you love someone deeply and do everything possible to show them that love, but they do not love you in return.  Most of us have at one time experienced unrequited love in our lives, perhaps romantically, or with an estranged spouse, or child, or parent.  We know how painful unrequited love can be.

The most tragic account of unrequited love is found in the Bible, in the first few chapters of Genesis.  God did everything possible to show his love for his children, humankind.  He created a perfect world, and made humankind in his own image, holy, perfect, and with a free will.  It was God’s desire that humanity use its free will to worship and serve him.  But instead, humanity rebelled against God, and for all his love toward us we showed him in return not love but contempt.

“For God so loved the world.”  God did not give up on us humans.  As St. Paul says in 2nd Timothy, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot be false to himself.”  St. John says that “God is love.”  You see, love is God’s very nature, his very essence, and “he cannot be false to himself.” That is the MOTIVE of your salvation: “For God so loved the world.”

St. Paul tells us in Romans how God put his LOVE into ACTION: “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  What does that mean, “Christ died for us”?  What does it mean when Jesus says, “For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to SAVE THE WORLD THROUGH HIM”?

The Bible says that the METHOD of your salvation is what theologians call the “vicarious atonement.”  That’s a fancy way of saying that God made up for humanity’s sin and rebellion by sending his own Son into our world, to endure FOR US the punishment that we all deserve, to suffer and die vicariously, IN OUR PLACE in order to win for us forgiveness of all our sins, to earn FOR US a place in heaven. 

St. Peter says: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.”  Isaiah puts it this way: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.  We observed him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.  He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

That is the METHOD of your salvation, God saved you through the atoning sacrifice of his own Son.  As St. John says, “The blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin. . .  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.  This is how God showed his love for us: He sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we would live through him. . .  he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent his Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”  That is the MEANS of your salvation: “Whoever believes in him.” 

Your salvation does not come through good works which you do, that somehow earn salvation for you, but through faith in Jesus Christ: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned.”  And in today’s Epistle Reading, St. Paul tells us that even faith itself is a gift of God: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”  Your faith is a gift of God, for it is God through his Word and Sacraments who calls you to faith, and empowers you to believe. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent his Son into the world NOT TO CONDEMN!” 

Every other religion in the world says, “If you DO this and that, and DON’T do this or that, IF you’re a good enough person, then MAYBE God MIGHT love you.”  But God’s wonderful Good News is: “God sent his Son into the world NOT TO CONDEMN . . . but to SAVE”—YOU!

Amen.

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