Today is November 1.  Yet I heard on the Evening News that tomorrow, Friday, November 2, is the new Black Friday...or the official start to the Christmas shopping season.  In years past, it has traditionally been the Friday following Thanksgiving.  But, with the economic news continuing to plunge, merchants want to extend as much as possible the holiday shopping season.  The projections are for a weaker than normal Christmas shopping experience.  With oil prices continuing a reckless pace toward $100 per barrel and with a record number of homes going onto the foreclosure market, it is little wonder that the economy is teetering.  I was in a meeting this afternoon and one of the men in my group remarked that in his community, a builder had built 60 homes...only 8 have sold.  That spells trouble.  Is it time to wring our hands in fear?  Is it time to crawl into our caves?  No, these are great opportunities to live out our faith.  Do we really have trust in the Lord, or is our confidence in something else?  If all we do is examine the Nightly News...then our lives become characterized by the uncertainty.   But, if we keep our eyes upon the Author and Finishers of our faith...then all will be well.  Our economic status may not change...but our confidence in the sovereignty of God and of His plan for our world will not change.  And that is what is important. 

For our study this week I would have you turn in your Bibles to John 3.  Beginning with verse 16 we have one of the most familiar of passages in the Bible.  One of the very first verses we learned in Sunday school days was John 3:16.  One of the very first verses the boys and girls in an AWANA program learn is John 3:16.  But do we really know what this verse is saying.  Someone once asked D. L. Moody why he preached on John 3:16 so very often, and that great preacher responded by saying that in all of his preaching he had never exhausted the material found within that verse.  So, this week I want us to focus upon these closing verses of John 3.

John 3:16 is the great declaration of God's great gift to us.  That gift springs out of God's great love for us.  Friends, one of the great universal truths in all of Scripture is this: the origin and initiative for my salvation and for yours lies with God alone.  We are living in a day when people feel that they must pacify God, as if God has to be persuaded to forgive men of their sins.  We sometimes paint a picture of an angry God and a meek and mild Jesus who did something to calm the wrath of that angry God.  John 3:16 declares that it all started with God - FOR GOD SO LOVE.  It was not my love for God which prompted Him to act.  It was His love for me.

God acted to satisfy His love.  God does not smash men and women into submission.  He yearns over them and woos them with His love.  This is because love proceeds from the fact that God is love.  Remember these words of the Apostle John years later: Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:8).  God's love is not some sentimental slush.  No, it is a love that was costly.  God gave what was most dear to Him...His Son. 

John 3:16 also describes the width of God's love...He loved the whole world.  The Jews thought that God only loved the nation of Israel.  Sometime we want to think that God loves just those who are worthy of being loved.  But the truth is that God loved the world...the lovely and the unlovely.  St. Augustine said, God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.  And, because of that great love, God sent His only begotten Son.  Friends, we have examined this concept of the incarnation a few weeks ago when we looked at John 1:14: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  And the purpose of the incarnation was that the One who was incarnate should be lifted high on a cross and be the sacrifice for the sins of the world. 

Finally, we see in John 3:16 what God's intent was for this demonstration of His love...that anyone who believes should never perish but have eternal life.  I don't have to do anything other than to simply believe. 

John 3:16 tells us what God did.   Verses 17-21 reveal what man did with the gift.  The bottom line is this: mankind rejected God's gift and God's love because they loved the darkness of their sins.  Verse 18 implies that what men are now doing determines what will happen when they stand before Christ on judgment day.  If I choose to believe that God sent His Son to die on a cross for my sins...then I am no longer under God's condemnation.  The Apostle Paul wrote those glorious words to the Romans: Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).  Wow!  When I received Jesus Christ into my life the war between me and God ceased.  I was reconciled to Him.  I came to know the peace with God in my life.  But, verse 18 also declares that if I choose not to believe in Christ, then I continue to be under the sentence of God's condemnation and, unless I am persuaded through the power of the Spirit to change my choice, then I will ultimately stand before God and hear His sentence of eternal punishment.  Here is an important truth: Just because Christ died for sins does not bring salvation automatically to everyone.  As much as we hear today words like - "Well, there are more than one way to God" and "God is going to accept all of us because He created us" and "How can a loving God turn us away" - there is no such thing as universal salvation.  The man who believes does not have to fear the judgment which is to come; the man who does not believe does not have to wait until the judgment day...he is condemned already. 

Finally, Jesus declares that those who are in the darkness of their sins do not like to come to the light because they do not want their sinful deeds to be exposed.  How truly sad it is that so many people today are lovers of darkness when they could be lovers of the light.  God does not impose His desires upon His people.  He allows them to make a choice.  Oh that we might persuade many to make the right choice.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.  (Julie Andrews)