this wonderful gospel. Today we'll be looking at a very familiar text, John 3.16. Have you been to football games, sporting events, and what do you do? You see these signs that say, John 3 colon 16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. So we come to this very familiar text today, perhaps the most famous verse in the entire Holy Bible. Martin Luther, the great reformer, called it the Bible in miniature, or the Bible in the bud, because it really summarizes so many key doctrines. It summarizes, really, the very purpose of why John is writing. Remember, he says, as he closes out the Gospel, back, I think it's in chapter 20, where he says, I've written these things that you may believe. That's the goal. That's the thrust. And that's the very purpose, even, of this verse. John 3.16 shows us the greatness of God's love, how vast it is, how unbound, how bottomless. It's like a bottomless sea. It's the very heart of the gospel. It is not simply God is love, but God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I know this verse is probably familiar with many of us, but let us commit right now to really, as it were, come to the feet of Jesus, to learn and to appreciate it all the more, to see more of the depth of what's really connected here. And we will be taking verses 16 to 21. We have several visitors here. We actually preach through books of the Bible. We don't use a church calendar. We actually preach through the entire book of the Bible, so you'll have a good understanding of that book. So today we're taking five verses, verses 16 to 21. There was a gem dealer that was strolling through the aisles of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, and he noticed a blue-violet stone about the size of a potato. And so he asked the person that was selling it, there was several different stones, Do you want $15 for this?" And then as he looked, he said it wasn't as attractive as the other stones. He says, I'll take $10 for it. So he bought it for $10. The stone has since been certified as a 1900 carat natural star sapphire, larger than any other stone, any other sapphire found to that date. It was appraised at 2.2 million dollars. You see, it took a lover of stones and gemstones to realize that sapphire's worth that the seller only thought was worth $10. And so too, it takes a God that loves His creation so much, the lover of souls, a Father in heaven, and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to recognize the true value of ordinary sinners, that He would send His Son to die on our behalf. So let's read the text. You'll find your place. Beginning in verse 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. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God is judged already. Verse 19, this is the judgment that light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought from God. Let's pray. Father, we do thank You for this opportunity to come and to learn of Your Word. We pray that You would pour out the Holy Spirit upon this place, O God, that You would quicken the minds of each one that is listening, that You would sharpen the mind of the one proclaiming Your Holy Word. And Lord, we confess, apart from You, we can do nothing. So we ask for Your help, yea, even supernatural help, and we ask it in no other but that precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, you remember earlier in chapter 3, very familiar passage as well, right? You must be born again, right? We all know that text. Here comes Nicodemus, one of the top religious rulers of all the Jewish people, and he comes to Jesus by night, and he's inquiring of Jesus, and Jesus says, you must be born again, but he can't understand it. He says, how can these things be? How can these things be? And what does Jesus say? He essentially says that if I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I told you heavenly things? It's as though he says, you don't even know your ABCs yet, Nicodemus. How do you expect me to tell you about eternal things? And so really, being born again is about a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, but then remember in verse 14, he says, as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Two must in that passage. You must be born again, the Son of Man must be lifted up. If the Son of Man is not lifted up and does not die in the place of sinners, there's no way you can be born again. And so the two are wedded together. So as we come to our text, this section of Scripture provides an introduction to a so-called realized eschatology of the fourth gospel. Judgment has come. Eternal life may be possessed now, even in the present life, as well as in the future. John 3.16 is packed full of theology. You know, if you have any systematic theology on your shelf, you've got the doctrine of God, and it moves on to the attributes of God, the doctrine of man. Well, you've got here in this one verse the doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God, as well as eschatology. So we're going to look at this under four points. First of all, the source of God's love, secondly, the gift of God's love, thirdly, the purpose of God's love, and then verses 18 to 21, how do you respond to God's love? Okay? So we're building a case here, but then you're going to be confronted with how do you respond to these truths. So let's look first at verse 16a, the source of God's love. For God so loved the world. God the Father is a loving Father. He's the author of love. In the Greek, we have in the English, for God so loved the world. In the Greek, the word really means in this way, or this is how much God loved the world. By nature, He is love. We read it in 1 John 4. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. That's the uniqueness of Christianity. You see, it's not man's love to God so much as it is God's great love to us. Man does not ascend unto God. God descends and comes to man. God bridges the gap, to put it another way. I'm so glad God does not love the way I love my dear wife of almost 27 years. I would lay down my life for her. I love her a lot. But my love is fickle. It can change. It's mutable. One day I might express that love in a better way than the next day. You see, God's love is not like that. God's love does not change. It's constant. And that's why all through the Old Testament you have the words of his steadfast love. It doesn't move, it doesn't shake, his loving kindness. John Owen, who wrote several good books, the Puritan, and his book Communion with God, which I wholly commend to you, he says this, about God's love, about the love of God, that we change every day, yet His love does not change. If anything in us or on our part could stop God loving us, then He would long ago have turned away from us. It is because His love is fixed and unchangeable that the Father shows us infinite patience and forbearance. If this love was not unchangeable, we would perish. See, God's love is an active love as well. 1 John 4 and 9, the love of God was manifested to us in that God sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. Most of all, love is completely undeserved because at the end of the day, we too are men who by our nature love darkness and want to escape God's light. That infinite brightness and holiness of God that our sin is exposed in an instant. And yet He set His love on us. Christmas is coming up. Most probably celebrate that. Maybe buy a gift for somebody. Who do you buy gifts for? Family? Huh? People you love, family and friends, right? You don't typically buy gifts for your arch enemies, right? Yet God's love, we are rebels before a holy God, and He gave us this wonderful gift of His Son. That's what motivates His love. He's a God of love, and He gave His Son, even though we're lost and ruined and rotten and enemies of God by nature. How could a holy God have such a love for a foul, stinking world? Well, the object of God's love, we have the world in a broad sense. Remember back in chapter 1, John the Baptist told us in verse 29 that he saw Jesus coming and he says, Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. In a very broad sense, the world is the object of God's love. But let me qualify that. This cannot mean every single person in the world. It cannot mean that whatsoever. God has chosen, He's loved some out of the world, and rejected and hated others. Even in His high priestly prayer in John 17, He says, He prays this, I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. That was 17.6, 17.14. I have given them your word, but the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Verse 16, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. You remember in Romans chapter 9, you've got laid out there that very picture of God's electing love, where he says, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. You see, Jesus died for a particular people. Turn over to John 10. This will be very, very evident. Jesus says in chapter 10 and verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, right? And in context here, you've got a picture of the one that really doesn't care about the sheep, right? But he lays down his life for the sheep. In verse 14 and 15, I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me. Even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father, I lay down my life for the sheep. Over in verse 26, he says, But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. In Acts 20 and verse 28, it talks about the idea of shepherding the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. It's the bride of Christ. It's the church of Christ who he died for. His death did nothing for those that were already suffering in hell. Nor for those that would willingly reject Him their entire life. If Jesus took away the sin of every single person without exception, every single person would be saved. There would be no need for a place of torment. He's actually not just the potentially of a Savior of the world, as B.B. Warfield says, God didn't just love the world so as to give it a bare chance at salvation. No, He actually secures our salvation. If the righteous blood of Christ is applied to your account, You are no longer an enemy of God. You are seen as righteous. Our sins were laid upon Him. His righteousness is imputed to us. There's a double divine transaction that takes place when Jesus dies for His people. In what ways does God love the world? Well, Christ came to save not quantitatively, but qualitatively. It's secure for every person who believes and trusts in Him. Or to put it another way, was humanity saved when God flooded the world? Was humanity saved through Noah? Absolutely he was. It was through a remnant. It was those that were inside of the ark that it was the means there. And so too, the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Paul says it's a trustworthy statement. You can take it to the bank. It's a trustworthy statement, 1 Timothy 1.15, deserving full acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And he goes on to say, among whom I am foremost of all. You see, he came on a rescue mission to save a particular people. Secondly, the gift of God's love is that He gave His Son. The infinite cost of God's love, the Father gave Him by sending Him into the world. We're celebrating around Christmas the incarnation of Christ. The Word became flesh, John told us in chapter 1. So the Word that was with God before the foundation of the world takes on human flesh. and comes to this sin-cursed earth. He comes, he's hungry, he's thirsty, he's rejected of man. He's coming on that rescue mission of which he will be effective. And ultimately he dies on the cross at the hands of wicked men. what the mission of the triune God was, is to send Him to die for us. This is amazing condescension. The second person of the Godhead takes on flesh. Just Him coming into this world and taking on a human body is enough for us to be amazed by. But listen to what Paul says in Philippians 2. Speaking of Christ, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. Taking the form of a bondservant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient, even to the point of death, and not just any death, what? Death on a cross. That is amazing. This is first century writing. This is when the Roman world was executing criminals and the scum of the earth by nailing them to a cross through crucifixion. And here he says he humbled himself so much, taking the form of a bondservant, becoming obedient even to the point of death, and yay! Even death on a cross. It's amazing to think about it. Did Jesus have to go against His will? No. He went willingly. Again, John 10 and verse 18, he says, No one has taken it away from me, but I laid down my life of my own initiative. He went willingly to the cross. It's a very costly gift. And that picture that we have in Genesis 22 is just beautiful here. Just to read the first few verses now, it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. And he said, take now your son, notice the language, your only son, whom you love. even Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him as a burnt offering on the mountain, of which I will tell you." And then we've already heard Pastor Steve read the entire passage, but let your eyes fall down to verse 13. Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up as for a burnt offering in the place of his son." You see that in verse 13? What is that saying? It's a picture of substitution. Who deserved to die among us as sinners that are redeemed? We deserve to die. But Jesus was our wonderful substitute. He knew what would happen. It says in Revelation 13, the Lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the world, He knew what He was coming to do. How can we doubt God's love when he gave us his only begotten son? See, Abraham was willing to offer his only son, but God the Father gives his only son to be offered up in our place. It is a value placed so high for our salvation. How will he not also freely give us all things? So the gift of God's love, but also the necessity of the death of Christ, if there was any other way, don't you think God would have done it to secure our salvation? It was only the death of the sinless Son of God that could atone for sins. I have three sons. I mean, I could say I want to lay down my life for my three sons. But what's the problem? I'm a sinful man. I can't lay down my life. It had to be a sinless offering. As a lamb, unblemished. Jesus was our substitute. Just like when you have a substitute teacher. You know, when I was in school, it was like, man, we're going to have some fun with this guy today, aren't we? We're going to do, you know, all that. But he was our substitute. During the, just after the American Civil War, there was a man on a farm close. He was seen kneeling at a gravestone in a soldier's cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee. Someone came up to him, he's kneeling at the gravestone, and asked him, was this the grave of your son? He says, no. I have seven children, and all of them are young, and my wife on my poor farm in Illinois. I was drafted, but despite me claiming that I have a hardship of seven young children, that we are extremely poor, they said, you have to go. On the morning when they were picking me up, To leave, my neighbor's older son came over and offered to take my place in the war so I could care for my family. Then this person asked, well, what are you writing on that gravestone? And he said simply, he died for me. He was a substitute. He stood in the place of this poor farmer, and so too Jesus Christ is a substitute. Isaiah 53, surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried, and yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, but he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. He stood in our place. What can wash away our sin? You know the song. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. You see, God is altogether holy. And He's a just God. And justice had to be satisfied. Adam sinned in the garden. Death spread to all men. Romans 5 and verse 12. Justice had to be satisfied. No other price would do. God is love, but his love is ruled by his righteousness and his holiness as well. Don't confuse the two. Don't make a god of your own imagination. Those who break God's law must be punished. But for Christians, Jesus took that punishment. For non-Christians, they will suffer an eternity in hell. So we've seen the source of God's love, we've seen the gift of God's love, now finally the purpose of God's love, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. You see, without this love, you would perish in your sins. Your sin makes you guilty and cries out for judgment. Just as Paul says in Romans 3.20, because of the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. You see, we have a tendency to think we're a little bit more righteous than we are. You know, even before God saved me and I came to Christ, I thought I was a pretty good upright sinner. Do you ever feel that way? Maybe before you came to Christ, or even once we're in Christ. We tend to think that we're better than what we really are, but the opposite is actually true because we don't fully understand the depth of our wicked and sinful hearts. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. The purpose of God's love is that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have eternal life. That's the good news, and that's why He sent His Son into the world. Look at verse 17. It says, "...for God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." That's the very purpose of why He sent His Son into the world. God could have sent his son only to judge the world, right? He could have. He could have just sent him to, just like with the flood, he wiped out however many people there were on the earth at that time. He could have sent a son just to wipe out most or all of humanity, but he didn't. He came on a rescue plan. He did not send His Son into the world to judge the world. Oh, that will come later, by the way. But He sent His Son that the world might be saved through Him. A rescue mission to die for us. That's the very condition of love, is that you must meet this condition. And what is it? To believe. Pretty simple, right? To believe. To have faith. Right? And whoever believes in him, the object of Christ. We're not talking here just some mere mental assent that, oh, I believe Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. Me and God are good, right? There's a lot more to it than that. In fact, the Bible talks about three key elements, and some of us know them by their Latin terms, notia, which is knowledge. There are truths that you must know in order to have saving faith. Secondly, assensus or assent. R.C. Sproul says of this one, intellectual assent involves the assurance and conviction of a certain proposition being true. When we say we believe George Washington was the first president of the United States, we mean we affirm the truth of that proposition. But there's a third element of faith. Right? And that is what's called fiducia. And that would mean trust or commitment. And Mueller's Dictionary of Latin Terms, he says this is the crown of faith. It's something that we lose in our English translations because it's just merely translated faith. But what this is, is that it's not enough to merely affirm certain things as being true, but we embrace them personally, trusting ourselves to them. As one man said, it takes us beyond the truth claims of the person. James Montgomery Boyce says on this term, we turn from trusting ourselves and instead we trust God fully. We see the infinite worth. and love of the Son of God who gave himself for our salvation and we commit ourselves to him. So it's a knowledge, it's an ascent, right? That we believe that it's true, but it's a full trust and commitment that must be there for biblical saving faith. You see, this offer of receiving this love goes to the entire world. It's not to the Jews only, it goes to the entire world. Acts 4.12, there is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. So the benefit of God's love is eternal life. When does eternal life start? When you come to faith, it begins eternal life. And this life, he's come to give us abundant life. Eternal life begins when we come to Christ in faith. John 10 verse 28, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. Those are strong words. Jesus goes on to say, my Father who is greater than I, no one will snatch Him out of His hands. So once we come to faith, we are saved eternally, securely, for all time. There's no such, don't believe any heresy that you can lose your salvation, that you're in faith today, you're out of faith tomorrow, you're back into faith the next day. No! Away with such folly. So eternal life, quantitatively, is that it will never end. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. But qualitatively, the quality of eternal life face-to-face with Christ, even fellowship with other believers, that bliss of heaven, having no more sin, being in pure worship before God, that is a quality that we will cherish. I have to say that the same word that's used for eternal life is the same word that's used for eternal death. So just as much as we believe eternal life, right? Like some of the cults want to believe in eternal life, but they don't believe in eternal death when Jesus spoke so much about it. Matthew 25, 46, at the end of the separation of the sheep and the goats, he says, these will go away unto eternal punishment, but the righteous unto eternal life. It's the same word in the Greek, ionios, that describes the eternality of eternal life and eternal death. No one will ever go to hell for trusting in Christ, though. If you come and you humble yourself, and you come and you cry out and you admit the truth that yes, you know that you are a sinner, and you want to believe the Lord Jesus Christ, and you begin to believe and pray that you believe He died for your sins, He will save you. So with this good news, verses 16 and 17, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes, remember, knowledge, assent, but trust and commitment, will not perish but have everlasting life. How will you respond to this good news? Well, look with me at verses 18 to 21. He who believes in Him is not judged. That's good news, right? He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already because he's not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, but the men love darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought by God." The light shines and reveals the character of each person. So first of all, verse 18, many people refuse God's amazing love. The coming of Jesus Christ, you know what it does? It divides humanity. There's believers and there's unbelievers, right? It necessitates a response to the truth claims of Jesus Christ. Though he did not come to condemn the world, and it is coming, but it naturally divides humanity. He says in chapter 9 of this gospel, he says, Jesus said, for judgment I've come into the world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. And that was at the end of that narrative of the blind man. And basically what he says, he's engaging with the Pharisees. He says, because you say you see, but you don't believe, you're going to become blind. In reality, each individual's character will be made manifested as the light shines into the world. The very person and presence of Jesus Christ is the only way to escape judgment. John 12 and verse 44, if anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me does not receive my sayings, has one who judges him. The word which I spoke to you will judge him on the last day. For I did not speak of my own initiative, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak." The second part of verse 18 tells us that those who do not believe have been judged already. They refuse to believe, and in refusing to believe, they actually condemn themselves. That's what the text is saying. What do you have to do to be condemned? Nothing. Don't believe? Nothing. That's how you become condemned. The offer that Christ gives is to come unto me that you might have life and have abundant life. It's as though the world is flooding and there's just a little bit of land left and sinful humanity's there and an ark pulls up, but men, sinful men will refuse to get into the ark to be rescued. It's ridiculous, isn't it? They condemn themselves. You see, what does it mean that they're judged already? Well, if they're not going to believe, the verdict has been declared, but the sentence has not yet been executed. In fact, Paul says in Romans 2.5, because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, You are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Don't be among those that are stubborn and unrepentant. Turn from your sins, come to Christ, receive the blessing of being saved. It's as though you go to the doctor, there's a deadly disease that you've been diagnosed with, and you've been to several doctors, and you finally go to the expert at the Mayo Clinic, and he says, I have the remedy. And he writes you a prescription, and you go home, and you say, I don't believe that's going to heal me of my disease, and you just go ahead and die. What folly, right? See, it's not enough to enjoy listening to Bible stories, or maybe even attending church and having a donut and some coffee at church. It's not enough to do that. You have to believe. You have to trust in Christ. Remember Felix? Remember when Paul's testifying in the latter chapters of the book of Acts? And Felix is enjoying listening to Paul talk about these things. And remember, he even says, thou almost persuadeth me to become a Christian. And he would call for Paul because he liked to hear these things. But he stopped short. He did not believe. Already under condemnation. He says, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.'" So, verses 19 and 20, why do people repudiate God's love? You see, it's a moral problem. It's not an intellectual problem. It's not as though you can't admit that there's a Savior in the world. It's a moral problem. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, Jesus would say in John 6. We're told in Jeremiah 17, the heart is deceitful above all else. We can kid ourselves to think that we're a pretty good person. 1 Corinthians 1.18, the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the very power of God. By nature, men love darkness rather than light. It is the light of the gospel that exposes sinful man's guilt before a holy God. When I was a young man, I was in a cheap apartment where I stayed, and it actually had roaches. And what happens when you go into the kitchen in the middle of the night, and you turn on the light, and you just see these bugs go, right under the baseboards and all of that? It's a gross scenario, but why? It's because they hate the light. And sinful men are like a foolish roach that doesn't know any better. Because their evil deeds they like to do under a cover, darkness. Men love their own autonomy. The irony is Nicodemus had come to the Lord in the darkness when it was dark. You remember that here. But the folly is is that nothing is hidden from God's sight. All things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Hebrews 4 and verse 13. Well, verse 21 says, but he who practices the truth comes to the light, so that his deeds may be manifested as being wrought by God. So this is a beautiful picture. Some respond with true faith. Some don't want to keep running into the darkness, but they respond in true faith. The believer escapes the condemnation by faith alone and Christ alone. He entrusts himself to Christ with a full reliance. He, as it were, climbs into the rescue boat when he hears that there is a rescue boat to rescue him from condemnation. And when a sinner comes to Christ, a beautiful thing, he's declared righteous in the court of heaven. Justification by faith. Justified by faith, all by virtue of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who is drawn to the light actually practices the truth. Perfectly? No, but he practices the truth. Even though he is not saved by works, but his deeds are manifested that they're truly come from God. So those who have been born again or regenerated, they're given a new nature. It's as though they're transformed from a sinful roach into a beautiful monarch butterfly, as it were. Well, a couple points of conclusion as we wrap up. Will you perish or have eternal life? I ask once again. Brothers and sisters, there's only one way of salvation, and it's through Jesus Christ. God's just wrath is aroused. because of your great sin before him, of not confessing your sin before him. You know that beautiful allegory, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, it's a beautiful picture there at the very beginning even. He's got a book in his hand, and it's the Holy Bible, and he's living in the city of destruction, and he knows God's judgment is going to come upon this city, and he meets evangelist and evangelist counsels him and says do you see yonder wicked gate he says no I think I do well do you see the light that's beyond the gate yes I see it then that's the way you want to go and so as he sets out He began running away from his family. He tried pleading with his family, this book is true, and they thought he was crazy. He runs and he says, life, life, as he's leaving the city of destruction, eternal life. And you remember, if you read the book, you know that some went out to try to persuade him, but you're leaving all of this behind. And he says, life, life, eternal life. You see, Christian fled from destruction toward the wicked gate into the light beyond, leading to the very cross of Christ. When he comes to the cross, his burden of sin that was on his back, you might remember, he's all hunched over, and he sees the cross, and the burden of sin falls off. It's a beautiful allegory. True Christians should be encouraged. The Bible provides so much encouragement. John Calvin said this, when Satan would drive us to despair, this verse, John 3.16, is our hope that God has appointed His Son to be the Savior of the world. You know, and we all have those down days where Satan's getting the upper edge of causing us to question, causing us to doubt. This is a verse that we want to go to to be reminded of that. Paul writes at the end of Romans 8, a familiar passage, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword, just as it is written, for your sake, we're being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. For I'm convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor death, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." That's our confidence if we're truly in Christ. We know nothing will separate us. If you're here today and you say, ah, I still love the darkness, I don't want to let I don't want to come to the light. Don't be a foolish sinner. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ who offers you salvation. Perhaps you're trying to hide in the darkness and hide your sin, but you cannot escape the very wrath of God and the omniscience of God that He sees all things. But the simple thing is, confess your sins, turn from your sins, and trust in Christ alone. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to gather together, to sing your praises, to hear your Word. We thank you for the truth even of this one verse, and we pray, O God, that you would work in each heart here. In Jesus' name, amen.