Giving Love (John 3:1-17)

The Barossa Valley is a beautiful place. People from all around the world travel to the Barossa to enjoy its rolling hills, picturesque valleys, majestic gumtrees, and vineyards that seem to go for ever. Visitors to the Barossa are also able to enjoy delicious food, spectacular wines, and welcoming, hospitable locals!

I wonder if, for people who have lived in the Barossa for a long time or maybe their whole lives, the great things about living in the Barossa become just an ordinary part of everyday life. When we are surrounded by the beauty of the Barossa each and every day, do we get used to the amazing landscape and delicious food and wine of the region, and maybe take them for granted? When was the last time we stopped, took some time to look around us, and appreciated and enjoyed the wonderful place in which we live?

It’s possible that we can do the same with Bible texts like John 3:16. A lot of people might recognize this text as possibly the best-known verse from the Bible. Many of us might be able to recite it from memory. However, our view of John 3:16 can become like the way we see the Barossa in which we live. We can be so familiar with it, so used to seeing it every day, that when we hear it or read it, we might think that we know it already and move on quickly. Like a Barossa landscape, sometimes it is good for us to stop what we’re doing, take some time, and have a fresh look at a text that can be so familiar to us.

There are good reasons why people refer to John 3:16 as ‘the gospel in a nutshell.’ This text contains so much good news that it is difficult to explore all of it in a quick drive-by glance, or in one short sermon. To begin with, the Apostle John tells us that God loved the world. When we look at the state of the world, what people are doing to the world and to each other, there is a lot not to like. We can witness a lot of brokenness and pain. However, God has not abandoned the world. He doesn’t turn his back, walk away, or reject the world. Instead, God loves this world, along with everything and everyone. There are a lot of things that are happening in the world which God doesn’t love, but John 3:16 tells us that he still loves this planet, the environment, the creatures, and the people who call this world home.

The text continues by telling us that God loves the world so that he gave to the world. ‘Love’ can mean lots of different things. For example, we can say that we love pizza, chocolate, or hot cross buns. This kind of love is a ‘getting’ kind of love because we desire what we love. A getting love wants to possess things, to have them for ourselves, and to consume them. That is fine when it comes to food, drink or possessions because God wants us to give thanks for and enjoy the good things he gives to us. However, loving people with a mainly getting love often results in dysfunctional and unhealthy relationships. If we pursue relationships that are more about what we get than what we give, we can treat people like possessions, trying to make them ours, to control them, or to consume them.

In stark contrast to this getting kind of love, John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world so much that he gave. This is a radically different kind of love from what we find and experience in the world. The goal of God’s love is not to ‘get’ anything from the world or from us, but to ‘give’. God’s love is so focussed on the world, its need, and the needs of the people in the world, that he gave and continues to give by providing for the world, taking care of the world, rescuing the world and making the world right again. When John writes that God loved the world so much that he gave, he points us to a kind of love which is oriented towards the other instead of the self. God’s love looks at what God can give to the world and not get from the world, what God can offer to us rather than demand from us.

God’s giving love comes at a cost. Whenever a gift is given, that gift needs to be paid for. When God loved the world with his divine, giving love, he knew that it would cost him. That cost shows the extent and depth of his love. John writes that God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son: Jesus Christ. This is the heart of the gospel. God’s giving love for the world and for us is so great that he gives the most precious thing he has for us: his only Son. John says the same thing in his First Letter when he writes,

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
(1 John 4:9,10 NLT)

God’s giving love is the central theme through John’s writings, and in fact throughout the whole Bible. When God gave us his Son, and when Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, God displayed his radical, self-giving love in which he sacrificed everything for us. That’s how great God’s love is for the world and for each of us.

When we know and trust this love, it will show in love for others. In John’s gospel, Jesus left his disciples with one command before his crucifixion: to love each other in the same way that he loved us (John 13:34). God’s giving love for us gives us the ability to keep Jesus’ command. It sets us free from the need to get from others and empowers us to love them with the same giving love with which God loves us. In Romans 8:32, the Apostle Paul tell us that because God gave us his Son, he will also willingly give us all things. Through faith in God’s promise, we can focus more on what we give to others than what we can get from them. The Holy Spirit works through God’s giving love to set us free so we can love other people, to seek their good, to provide and care for them with this divine, giving love.

God’s giving love for us in Jesus is something we can take for granted, like a picturesque Barossa view. It is good for us to stop regularly and explore again what this love looks like in Bible passages such as John 3:16. God’s ‘giving’ love for us in Jesus leads us into a radically different way of life which prioritizes and pursues not what we get from others but what we give. The goal is healthy, Christ-centred relationships where we freely give to and receive from each other in faith. Our life-long journey as Jesus’ disciples is to keep learning how to love others with God’s giving love by returning to God’s gift of his Son to us, and Jesus’ gift of his life for us on the cross. As we continue to encounter and explore God’s giving love for us in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will shape our hearts and shift the orientation of our lives so that God’s giving love flows through is into the lives of others.

And the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep is in Christ Jesus and his greater grace. Amen.

More to think about or discuss:

• How is God’s giving love for us in Jesus’ cross similar to or different from how you have experienced love in your life?
• How might God’s giving love for you in Jesus be good news for you right now?
• What is one way you can show God’s giving love to someone this week?