For God So Loved the World

That's Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. It's all summed up in one statement in the Bible. It says, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

That's Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. In today's message, Carter will remind us, there is a love in the heart of God for you. That it is so deep, so vast, so high, so wide, that our natural minds can never on this side of eternity begin to understand it. Truly what an amazing God we have.

Let's join Carter now as he helps explain the meaning of, For God so loved the world. You can be free. You can understand the meaning of life. You can find the reason that you were born. You find out what life is about. You can find the strength to escape the inescapable in your own strength. You can find a supernatural life that is not available even in our best intentions and the strongest of our human efforts.

None of us can attain to it. The life that God offers through Jesus Christ is a miraculous life. It's a life that causes you to sing. The Psalmist David talked about being in a state in his life where he was sinking down into a clay, a miry clay that he couldn't get out of. But he said, God raised me up and he set me upon a rock, which means a solid place, a place of firmness, a place that's not insecure. And he put a new song in my mouth and he said, many people will see this song and will begin to fear God and believe in him.

The song that God offers to those who turn to Christ is not a song that is just sung with our mouths, but it's a song that can be seen. It's a change of the entire person. It's a change of our being. It is something that God does.

It's not something that we do. We don't decide to be godly because none of us have the power to do it. God created us in the beginning in his own image. And in the original text, that means he created us with the same attributes.

We're not God, but he created us with the characteristics of God, the ability to think and reason and feel. And it was godly until sin entered into the human race through the first created man Adam and his wife Eve. And that sin was passed on to all generations and brought upon all people a death, an inability in a sense to escape our own corruption. Paul the Apostle said it this way, the things I want to do, the things that I know are right, I can't find the power to do them, even though I know that I should be doing them. There's a law inside of me at work. And he called it a law of death. It's a law of sin and a law of death that said work inside of me causing me to do what I know is wrong. To the point sometimes, where people despair, they don't know how to get out.

And Paul said it the way that many people say it in our time and every other time, who will deliver me? How will I ever get free from this body of death? How will I escape the depression?

We heard about that wants to swallow me, especially at this time, how will I ever be healed from the hurt that is in my heart, from the betrayal that I experienced as a child or as a young person, or in a relationship or from people that you once trusted, who turned on you and wounded you so deeply in your heart, you don't know if you'll ever recover? Will I ever stop being afraid of the dark? Am I destined to jump at every noise that's around me? Why do I have this impending sense of that I'm in a place that is not safe, it's not comfortable? Why do I hate life the way it is? Why can't I seemingly find the meaning of life? Why is it everything that I try seems to cause me to spiral down deeper into practices that I know I was taught, I once believed? Where did the optimism that I once had as a child go? How did it slide through my fingers? How did I become the person that I am today? When did this all happen?

And how do I get out of this? I have a sense in my heart that I was born for something more than this. I felt it as a child. Even at times I felt God calling me. It's as if he was walking right beside me, but somehow his voice eluded me and I ended up on another pathway and his voice, although still there is very, very distant.

I don't even know. Some people would say, hi, God here. How do I become the person that I feel in my heart that I was born to be? How do I escape this body of death? How does this sin that sin being defined as wrong ways of doing things, wrong ways of thinking, wrong ways of living, wrong ways of acting, wrong ways of reasoning, everything that came into the human race because of the sins of our first parents against a holy God.

How do I escape the borders of this corruption? Now, if you and I were God and the person beside you, because there's three persons in the triune God, very distinct, but equally God and one, it's one of the great mysteries of God that he's manifested in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I think that you can be thankful that you and I and the person beside you are not God. If we were, things would be a lot different in this world.

As a matter of fact, this world wouldn't be here. If you and I and the person beside you were God and we look down at our own creation, created in the image, in our own image with the attributes of God completely corrupted. God looks down upon the people of this earth and even in our best efforts to be good, he sees corruption. All have sinned, the Bible says, and come short of the glory of God.

There's not one right standing or righteous, not even one among men in our own strength. If you and I and the person beside you were God, I'm going to be in India and one of the congregations I'll be preaching and I'm told today is going to have child sex slaves in it that are brought to church on Sunday by one of the local ministries. If you and I and the person beside you were God, there'd be some dead people in India who abused these children. If you and I and the person beside you were God and we look down from heaven and we witnessed the corruption, the constant corruption, the corrupted reasoning of humanity, the fact that people are choosing who should live and who should die based on convenience trying to cover up sin and the consequences of sin. We look down at the arrogance of nations trying to govern without God.

We look down at inhumanity, that man commits against man, atrocities committed in various names and for various reasons. If you and I and the person beside you were God, we would have destroyed this earth by now. And God would be just if he did. He could have done it when Adam sinned. He could have just folded it all up. He could have clapped his hands together and turned it to cosmic dust and recreated again a world and more created beings in the image of God. And the question that comes to mind is why didn't he do it?

Why didn't he and why doesn't he? Why does he let seemingly sin go unabated? Why is atrocity happened?

Why are there so many wrongs committed within the world? It's all summed up in one statement in the Bible. It says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved.

Paul said, who will deliver me from this body of death? Do you want to know why God hasn't destroyed the world? Now, of course, the world will destroy itself without the intervention of God. The Bible bears witness to that.

We have weapons now. I believe that only the hand of God holds us back from destroying ourselves 17 times over as a planet. The only reason God didn't do this is because there's a love in the heart of God for you. That is so deep. It's so vast.

It's so high. It's so wide that our natural minds will never on this side of eternity begin to understand it. God so loved you in your struggle. God so loved you in your misunderstanding. God so loved you in your misrepresentation of him. God so loved you when you were abused or you were the abuser. God so loved you when you were doing right and God so loved you when you were doing wrong. God so loved you that he was not willing to lose you. And looking down at his own creation, God was not taken by surprise because the scripture tells us that he foreknew what was going to happen in this world. God so loved you that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, into the world to be nailed to a cross because a price had to be paid for the wrong things that you have done and I have done.

An ultimate price or we could not be made back into right relationship with God. And God so loved you that he was not willing to lose you. So he took his only son and sent him into the world to suffer rejection, to be spit on by his own fallen creation, to be whipped and to be bruised, to be misunderstood, to be maligned, to be called even the son of the devil.

All of these things. And he was willing to endure it because he didn't want to lose you. He saw you. He foreknew that you were going to be born. Nothing catches God by surprise.

You are not a fluke of the universe. He allowed you to be conceived no matter what the circumstance was that brought you into this world. And he so loved you that he let this world go on and he lets it exist as it is today because he knew you were going to be born and he knew you would be here and he wanted you back to himself, not just for time, but for all of eternity. God so loved you, he was willing to break the power of sin, the power that separates you from God, the power that makes us other than what we were created to be. God so loved us that he sent his son to die on a cross to pay the price for all of the wrong that we have committed. God so loved us that he sent his Holy Spirit. You heard about it for those who are crying out for living relationship with God.

When sin has been dealt with, God's Holy Spirit comes and takes up residency literally inside of you and changes you from the inside out. God so loved you and God so loved me, he was willing to give us the power to be the people that we always knew we had been called to be. God so loved you that while his son died on a cross and while his Holy Spirit had come to give us strength to be people that could truly walk in living relationship with him, God the Father said, while you are down there doing this, I am going to prepare a place for those who turn to me through Jesus Christ. In my Father's house, Jesus said, are many mansions.

I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also. Not only freedom in time, but hope forever and eternity with God and all that that represents free from the penalty of death, free from the penalty of separation from God and brought into a living relationship with God through faith in that one atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a cross 2000 years ago. This is not some religious pipe dream we're talking to you about.

This is more real than life itself. I sat in the seat of skepticism once just like some of you are. I had somebody tell me these truths that I'm trying my best to convey to you and those that have testified have tried to convey to you. I literally blew smoke in the person's face, figuratively speaking, challenged everything he said that he believed, feeling that this had to be too good to be true.

It couldn't quite be that easy. Somehow portraying that I was quite happy to be the person I was, which, of course, was alive because inwardly I hated myself. I hated what I was becoming.

I hated some of the things I was doing and seemed powerless to stop doing it. I knew I was created for something more than I was becoming. There's an inner knowledge in my heart that I was created for more than what I had become. And on the off chance that what I was hearing was true, I pulled over on the side of the road May 12th, 1978, and I said, Lord Jesus, if what my friend is telling me is the truth, if this is true, if what I'm reading in the scriptures is right, and I read these words in the Gospel of John that I'm reading to you, if this is true, if I can be made in right relationship with God, if my sin can be forgiven, if the patterns of behavior can be broken, if I can become another person than the person I'm becoming, then I invite you, Jesus, to come into my life and be my Lord and Savior. I give my life to you. That's all I prayed.

That's all I knew how to pray. I've shared it with many here before, but I drove to work. I was a police officer at the time. I worked my afternoon shift. I went home after midnight. I slept that night. I didn't feel any different. Nothing had changed inside of me. There were no bells.

There was no tingly feeling. I didn't even feel like loving anybody. I didn't feel any different, but as God lives, I woke up the next morning and when my feet touch the floor, I can't tell you how, but I knew I was a different man.

Something had happened to me. Thank God that he didn't destroy the world before I had a chance to receive him as Savior. Thank God that Jesus didn't decide to end it all yesterday because if you're here tonight and you're not saved, the only thing that would be ahead of you is an eternal darkness without God and all of the anguish and all of the sorrow forever that that represents.

But God so loved you, he lets the world go on because God loves you and he's not willing to lose anyone that has been created in his image. One day, if you have the sense to receive Christ as your Savior, you'll stand at the throne of God and one day you'll see a love that's immeasurable. It has no beginning. It has no end. It has no hide. It has no depth.

It's beyond understanding. A love so powerful. I believe that's what will make hell hell because the sinner who never received Christ will stand there and see this love and understand it for the first time in his life or her life only to realize that they're to be put away from this presence of God for all of eternity into what the Bible says is an outer darkness so thick you can touch it. A place with no hope, a place with no way out, a place with no comfort, a place with nothing but anguish because we made the choice to live without God when he opened his arms on the cross and offered us eternal life.

That's the offer for you. What more could he do? He died on a cross. He came, he dwelt among men. He raised the dead. He walked on water, gave sight to the blind. He proved conclusively he was the son of God. He made a declaration that forgiveness was there. Then he went to a cross and the last words in his mouth were, Father, forgive them.

That's why Jesus came that we might come back into right relationship with God again. You've heard the story. You've heard the testimonies. There's something in your heart that bears witness that this is true. This is right. I don't know how I knew it.

I knew it. I've preached in other countries. I've preached to audiences who've never heard this truth.

All their lives been raised in some form of religion that falls short of the glory of God. But the first time they heard this truth, tears came. Every man standing there with a semi honest heart was able to say, God, this is what I've been looking for all my life.

I know this is true. I preached in a Hindu Muslim prison one time in South America with, and as I was speaking, tears began to flow. There was, I don't know how many people in the prisoners in the place, maybe 80 or 90. I don't remember the exact number, but all I remember is that tears began to flow and as I was speaking, a man whispered into my ear because I was just a young Christian. This is the first time most of these men have ever heard this truth with all the religious paraphernalia that was on. You'd think they wouldn't give me the time of day, but I began to speak about the love of God, the cross of Jesus Christ, the opportunity to receive hope and to receive life.

And suddenly the tears came. And when I asked people to raise their hands who wanted to receive Christ in a Hindu Muslim prison, every hand but one went up in that room, an inner witness that this is true. I trust in that witness. When I get up to speak, I have to trust in the witness of the Holy Spirit.

God created you. So God has to be able to speak to your heart in spite of the feebleness of our attempts to present the living God. He bears witness to what is true and he bears witness in your heart. You can be forgiven if you have the courage to acknowledge that you can't get to heaven without him. You can't do it in your own strength. All have sinned.

The scripture makes it conclusive and fallen short of the glory of God. There's only one way into eternal life and it's through faith in Jesus Christ and what he did for you two thousand years ago on the cross. There's no other way to change. There's no other way to know the sovereign supernatural change, but to receive Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to come into your life.

And just like helium in a balloon, there's no it's easiest way I can describe it. Suddenly you're lifted. Suddenly you're able to to fly what everyone else around you is falling. There's something different inside of you than that which is inside of every man or woman who doesn't know God in spite of their best efforts to be good people. And some of them are, but it still falls short of the glory of God.

A new song comes into the heart, a new bounce in your step, a new direction for your life. And you are made into the person by the strength of God that God has always destined you to be. It seems too good to be true, doesn't it? Seems too easy to be real. That's what I believed until the day that I had the courage to say, Jesus, if this is true, if I said if and he took me at that word because I was sincere. If it's true, I'll follow you. If it's true, I want you as God. If it's true, Lord, if it's true, I'll give my life to you.

If it's true, I can be forgiven, changed. And folks, I could talk and talk to you all night about what God has done. What a walk this has been. What a miracle it's been.

How incredible it's been. I was stone cold dead inside. I'm telling you, I could go to a car accident.

I could draw chalk lines around the bodies on the pavement and go and eat my lunch. It didn't bother me at all. Didn't care. Remember how strange it I started to feel when I started to care about people.

Give out a ticket, I'd feel a strange compassion in my heart all of a sudden that was never there before. Who put that there? It wasn't me. And you begin to know. And then one night I went to a halfway house. It's a long story, but I went to a halfway house to see this motorcycle gang member that had apparently given his life to Christ.

I didn't believe it was possible. A friend of mine told me it had happened. So I ended up going there in uniform and we're sitting there. They were having a service in this halfway house and it was a heavy duty halfway house. A lot of people have done serious time.

And this was their kind of the way station of reintegrating into society. And they were all Christians in this place. And after their service was over, they laid their hands on me and the Holy Spirit came on me and I started to speak with other tongues. This is what God promises to do. He says, I'll pray.

I'll give you the power and I'll pray through you. And this so shocked me. I mean, these ex-cons laid their hands on me and I was filled with the Holy Spirit. I mean, one of them was a Hell's Angel, former.

I mean, that's incredible. The kingdom of God. And you find yourself loving these people. You find yourself reaching out to people that you have nothing in common with.

You find yourself in a body of believers called the Church of Jesus Christ of every race and culture and nation and social standing. And suddenly there's a there's an affection in your heart for these people, which is supernatural. It's not natural. It's given by God. And suddenly you get a taste for what God is willing to do in your life. And you realize that you're no longer bound by the things of the past. You're no longer governed by former wounds. You're no longer limited by what somebody or yourself has said about your life.

And suddenly you explode into the supernatural by faith. God begins to use you and your life begins to be a testimony of who he is in the earth because he does what only he can do. And the story that we tell is not about ourselves. The song we sing is not about ourselves. It's not about a church or religion.

It's about Jesus Christ, the son of God who died and gave his life for us. You'll find yourself if you turn to Christ tonight doing things you never believed you would do, associating with people you never thought you would associate with, caring about situations that you couldn't give two cents for because God puts his Holy Spirit within you. And you're changed. I was so intrigued by that thought that I could be changed.

I hope that you're intrigued by it as well. Changed into the man into the woman that God destined you to be called you to be sin ruined. But God gives it back. And he gives it back in full measure. And he gives it back with a song, with hope in the future. It all starts by just an acknowledgement that I'm a sinner and I need a Savior. I need to be forgiven.

I need God to come into my life through his son, Jesus Christ. The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.