Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham. We meet a God. Who loves us? Not a raging God, an angry God. But a loving God.
who loves every person. On planet Earth. On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about the unfathomable, unending love that God has for you.
Now here's doctor Graham with his message. Where's the love? John chapter 3. In verse 16. One single superlative sentence.
in the Bible. John 3. Yeah. Way, way back, there was a man who was on a search for truth, a search for love. He was a religious VIP in Jerusalem.
He was a man who spent his life studying God. His whole life was God, God, and more God. He was credentialed. He was powerful. He was a man among men in the city of Jerusalem.
He was known as Nicodemus. And Nicodemus, this man, Nick, came at night to meet Jesus. There were questions in his heart, a longing for love, a longing for God that he could not answer.
So he came to the Lord Jesus Christ, a Galilean carpenter.
Some said he was the Messiah. And Nicodemus wanted to know. Where is The love. What is reduced to everything in the scriptures? If you only had this one Amazing sentence.
If you just had this statement that came from the lips of our Lord, if you only had this, there would be enough. Grace and love and salvation provided for everyone on planet Earth, past, present, and future, to know the love and the grace and the forgiveness and the salvation that comes in Christ. This man, Nicodemus, he came with these questions. Wanting to know. Initially, on an intellectual plane, he said, We know that you're a teacher, come from God.
And he was keeping it at that level, but Jesus, as always, went right for the heart. And he said to Nicodemus, You must be born again. It stunned him, it staggered him because he said, How is that possible? How can an old man like me? Start over.
How can I be born again? How could we possibly go back and change what has happened? And how can we change our future? Because now it seems that many of us have set our course and I'm too old to change. I'm too difficult.
My heart is too set. To change. And that's when Jesus spoke to him these words. For God so loved the world. That he gave his only Begotten Son.
That whoever believes in him would not perish. But have Everlasting life. We tell our children this most basic and simple truth about life. God loves You. But the love of God is not Simple child's play.
While it is reachable and teachable to the smallest of children. It is also an ocean to swim in for all of us who have known and are experiencing this love. every day. Karl Bart, a well-known German theologian, came to America and spoke on a seminary campus. And he wowed the students with his words and the depth and the profundity of his ideas.
And one young student, at the end of the discussion, asked a question and said, Dr. Bart, what is the most profound thought that has ever entered your mind? And Bart bowed his head for a moment and thought and quickly said, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible. tells me so.
So wherever you are, In life, whatever season of life, wherever you are in your terms of understanding spiritual things. John 3.16. This is it. For God So love the world. It begins with God, of course.
We meet a God. Who loves us? Not a raging God, an angry God. But a loving God. Who loves every person?
on planet Earth. The God who is holy. Creator. Sustainer of the universe, the everlasting God. There were times when men would come into the presence of God and shake with fear, when Isaiah stood before the Lord.
Holy, high, and lifted up. He saw his own sinfulness in the presence of a holy God, and as a result, his whole life unraveled. He had a spiritual meltdown in the presence of a holy God. How could a man see God and live? He was undone.
His life was torn apart, but then he discovered, even there at the altar of God. the forgiveness and the grace. And the healing touch of God. God's love is everywhere in the Bible. From the beginning pages when Adam and Eve sinned against God and ran from his presence and hid in the garden.
And God came searching, God came looking. for the sinful man and his wife. And in his love, he promised salvation and hope and a future. God's love is everywhere. We see it in his goodness in the scripture.
We see the Bible describing God's faithfulness and God's mercy and God's loving kindness and God's patience and God's. grace, all of these expressions of God who is love. For God is Love.
So, if you want to know where is the love, this is where you start. For God.
So love the world. A world filled with thieves and terrorists. purveyors of flesh and pornographers. A world filled with sin and shame, abusers, and addicts, and hypocrites, and druggies, and. People like you and me.
God loves the world. The claim of Jesus is that God loves people with an everlasting love.
So much that he gave himself By giving his only Son. That whoever Believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. That whoever. This is the welcoming Word and will of God. Whoever.
I said It must be one of God's favorite words, if not his favorite. Whoever, whosoever will. Jesus said it so often. Whoever confesses me I will confess before my Father in heaven. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
Ah, perish. What a terrible word. What a sobering word. And here Jesus meets of potential of disaster head on. He said it's possible for a person that God loves.
To die and to be separated from that love forever in the place called hell. But Jesus tells us, Jesus shows us in the scripture that if a person is going to hell, which was never made for a human being but made for the devil and his angels, but if a person goes to hell, it will be over the dead, crucified, bloody body of the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved you enough to die on the cross. And that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Whoever believes, Not simply believing a little bit. But to believe with all your heart.
And to put your faith and your rest and trust. Oh, how impossible it is to describe the love of God. And we can't imagine how God. Could love a sin-stained, sin-scarred world, people like you and me. How could God love me?
We can understand how God could love little children. We could understand how God could love hurting people. We could understand how God could love the religious types. But how could God love me? Because we all know our own hearts.
It blows my mind to sit and think and contemplate. One little two-letter word in this alphabet of grace, John 3, 16. For God So loved the world. How much love is in that kind of love. He's so He so loved the world.
inexhaustible. Eternal, unending. He so loved you. And me, the Apostle Paul, who had Certainly one of the greatest minds in history. One of the great theologians who gave us so much of the New Testament.
He sought to describe and to define the love of God and In the book of Ephesians chapter 3, he spoke of its height and its depth and its width and its breadth. It's like measuring the immeasurable, isn't it? How high is the love of God? How high does it go? How deep does the love of God plunge?
How wide is this love? Broad is this love. And if you want to know How much is in this word so, then stand at the foot of the cross. Stand and see Jesus suspended between heaven and earth. As if he was not good enough for God and not good enough for man.
His arms extended, his heart bursting. His love poured out. And why? He was made sin for us, he who knew no sin. Became sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God.
And those hands. that formed the universe. and put the planets in place. Those hands. Who touched broken lives, those hands who lifted little children and embraced them, those hands.
Which lifted a fallen woman from disgrace. Those hands are now nailed to the cross. All to demonstrate the love of God. Because God In Christ was reconciling the world to Himself. With one hand, Jesus took holy God and the other hand, sinful man, and love, and grace, and truth kissed at the cross of the Lord Jesus.
Mercy was poured out. And all of this love, this so kind of love was for you and for me. The word is agape in the New Testament, which is Love which is active and aggressive and committed. But God love and God gave. Because God loved and because God gave we Live.
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Now, let's get back to today's message. Where's the love? For God so loved the world. How can a man who is sinful stand before a holy God? It's because Christ took our place upon the cross, for God so loved the world, He gave His only Son.
There's a word in the New Testament. That's used often. and especially used to describe what Christ did for us in showing the love of God. It's the word hyper. H-Y-P-E-R.
It means in place of. or on behalf of And the New Testament writers repeatedly turned to this proposition. to describe the work of the cross. For example, Christ died for hyper. Our sins, 1 Corinthians 15, 13.
Jesus gave himself for hyper. Our sins, Galatians 1.4. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for hyper us. Galatians 3:13. Jesus Himself prophesied: the good shepherd lays down his life for hyper his sheep.
John 10:11. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for hyper his friends. John 15, 13. And then before his death, Jesus took the bread and broke it. And then he explained, This is my body, which is given for hyper you.
And presenting the cup, he said, This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out hyper for you.
So, just in case I'm sounding a little hyper this morning. Let me remind you how critical this is. What God did. for you, in behalf of you. In your place.
Undeserving of death. He died. Taking our place upon the cross. Jesus made the exchange of a diseased heart, a sinful life. And he took that upon himself, yours, mine, the sins of the whole world.
And God demonstrated his love for Hyper Us that we might be saved. That we might know this love. God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The Lord laid on him all of our sins. And all the punishment.
For all the evil that we've done. That's how much. And that's just the beginning. of how God so Loved you. And gratefully, it's the love that you can never lose.
What will separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ? There's nothing you can do to earn it. There's nothing you can do to spurt it. There's nothing you have done to gain it, and there's nothing you can do to give it away. There's nothing that you've done to win it.
There's nothing that you can do to lose it. He perfectly loves you. What a text! For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. We who deserve death have life.
We who deserve judgment have forgiveness. We who deserve hell Have salvation in heaven. The Bible says God's love is from everlasting to everlasting. His love came down to the vilest of sin and shame. His love penetrated the darkness so that our lives could be changed.
The psalmist said, I was in a terrible, horrible pit, but he brought me up and set my feet on a solid rock. And we were living in that pit, unable to climb out, but by his love, he reached down and put us on solid rock. And never a place Or a person. That would keep you from God's love. There's only one thing that would keep you from the love of God, and that is your own resistance.
Your own rebellion. God moved heaven and earth to save men from perishing. I said this word perish was a sobering word. It's really a startling word. Because it's a word which means dying and never dying.
perishing and yet never perishing. What a horrible thought. Only a fool, a very foolish person, would try to rule hell out of existence. Jesus said, there is a place of perishing. But I love you.
And I want you to be with me forever. You see, if a holy God did not judge sin, God himself would be Breaking his own commandments. We speak of justice. and fairness.
Well, in the justice of God, in the fairness and Perfection of God, he must judge sin. Or else God himself would cease. To be holy. It was a dilemma, but God solved the dilemma in the person of Christ. When he gave his only Son.
No, I can't describe this love for you, but you can experience it. Recently, I had the opportunity to be at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. It was a thrill. I'd been there on several occasions before this time. We were just looking at the history of baseball and and all the grapes and immortals of the game.
I was Looking at some of the memorabilia from Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle was my hero as a kid growing up in the 50s, as many of you. And there was nothing quite like the Mick, the farm boy from Oklahoma. and he could hit a baseball, and this was before the steroid generation. Before baseball players even lifted weights, we were told as young baseball players, when I was coming up playing ball, don't lift a weight, it'll bulk you up.
And so before weightlifting and so on, I mean, this guy could crush a baseball, and we just all loved him. We'd be outside playing, and there was just one game of the week. It was typically the Yankees, and we'd go running in when we figured Mickey was up just to see the Mick hit. It was unbelievable.
Well, of course, Mickey, by his own testimony, wasted so much of his talent and alcohol consumed him. He ultimately ended up dying of liver disease, though he had received a transplant. Liver cancer took over. He was dying here in Dallas in Baylor Hospital, and several of his friends who loved him shared Christ with him. And Mickey always lived in fear of death.
His father's brothers had died of Hodgkin's disease, and he figured that he wouldn't live very long. I think it was probably Mickey Mantle who first said, if I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself. But now he's dying and Some friends were coming in, and Mickey had always accepted death and yet was running.
Some people said he drank. just to numb the pain of the possibility of an early death. And he was dying. Several friends shared Christ with him, and among those was Bobby Richardson, the famed second baseman of the Yankees. And Bobby, who's a strong believer, just wanted to really nail it down with the mick.
That he knew Christ, that he was going to heaven because it wasn't going to be long. Vicki and his wife came to the city and shared Christ with him and Mickey said, yes, I... I believe I'm trusting in Christ. The next day, Bobby's wife came and said, Now, Mickey, one more time, do you know? That you're going to heaven.
If you stand before God and God were to say to you, Why should I let you into my heaven? Mickey, what are you going to tell God when you stand before God? Mickey looked up. and said For God so loved the world. That he gave his only begotten son.
that whoever believes in him would not perish. but have everlasting life. Amen. That's a verse to die by. It's a verse to live by.
You know, Mickey Mano received Christ in the bottom of the ninth. I received Christ in the top of the first. When I was just a young boy, and I'm grateful for that. And somebody says, well, How fair is that? Is that fair?
I mean, a person receives Christ at the top of the first, goes to heaven.
Somebody receives Christ in the bottom of the night, goes to heaven? Is that fair? We're not talking about fair here. Because if we're talking about fair, all of us would go to hell. Amen.
Amen. Every one of us. We're not talking about what is fair. We're talking about what God has done for us and this whoever Means whatever, whatever you have done, whatever sins you have committed. This whoever means wherever.
Wherever you've been from the grace of God, long way down the road, like a prodigal son, or maybe even sitting in church today with your heart far from God, wherever you are, whoever means wherever, whoever means whatever, and whoever means whenever. In the bottom of the ninth are the first of the first. God loves you. And if you will believe in Him and put your trust and your faith and your weight upon Him, The love that he gives. is the law that you will live.
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Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today?
Okay. In my estimation, the greatest sentence ever uttered was spoken by Jesus in John 3:16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that he that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. As we saw in today's message, Jesus spoke these life-giving words during a conversation he had with a man by the name of Nicodemus.
Now, Nicodemus was a lot like people in church today. He knew about God. He pursued God, he championed God, and in many ways he pleased God. Yet, Nicodemus had a longing for something more, something else, something better. He desired a relationship with God.
Nicodemus had a longing for a love that he knew had never been fulfilled. This is what led him to engage Jesus in a personal, one-on-one conversation. and Nicodemus reacted to Jesus in a way that a lot of people react to Jesus. he thought that it sounded too good to be true. He wondered aloud: how can an old man be born again?
How can I possibly start over? Maybe you've had the same kinds of thoughts. When it comes to accepting Jesus' love and acceptance of you, one of Sata's greatest tricks is to make you believe that you're too far gone, that you're too lost, that your sin is too great, or that God could never loved you. You know what I have to say about that? Nothing could be further from the truth.
You're never too far gone for God to love you. He loves you, according to the Scripture, with an everlasting love. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin. That means because of what Christ has done for us on the cross. and now in the power of his life, Our sins can be forgiven past, present, and future.
We can be totally transformed because God loves us that much. The fact is, when you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, your life is forever changed.
So don't live in guilt, don't live in the past, but embrace Christ and the future that he has for you. While our sins do have consequences, our God is able to deliver us from every sin. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's 365-day devotional IM.
Just text Jan to 59-789. And join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about the results, rewards, and responsibilities that go along with your salvation. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.
