PREPARATION. > Determine which discussion points and questions will work best with your group.

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1 JESUS IS LOVE PAYING THE PRICE OF LOVE JOHN 3:16-18 MARCH 6, 2016

2 JOHN 3:16-18 MARCH 6, 2016 TEACHING PLAN PREPARATION > Spend the week reading through and studying John 3: Consult the commentary provided and any additional study tools (such as a concordance or Bible dictionary) to enhance your preparation. > Determine which discussion points and questions will work best with your group. > Pray for our pastors, the upcoming group meeting, your teaching, your group members, and their receptivity to the study. HIGHLIGHTS BIBLICAL EMPHASIS: Motivated by love, God gave His only Son so we could have eternal life. TEACHING AIM: Jesus is the definition of love. As Christ followers, we look to His example, rather than the world, to define true love. 2 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

3 INTRODUCTION As your group time begins, use this section to help get the conversation going. 1 Imagine finding yourself in a life-threatening situation. How far would you go to save someone else s life if it meant risking your own? Notes 2 Would you be more prone to save someone you thought was a good person? 3 What would motivate you to risk your life for a stranger? In March of 2012, Stephanie Decker was at home in Henryville, Indiana with her two young children, Dominic, 8, and Reese, 5, when their hometown was hit by a series of tornadoes. Stephanie got her children to safety and used her own body as a shield to protect them when their house crumbled on top of them. Both kids were unharmed, but Stephanie was badly injured. She suffered a punctured lung, 7 broken ribs, and had to have both legs amputated at the knee. In the days following the amputation, Stephanie was asked my local media outlets what motivated her to use her body as a human shield. She answered, The love I have for my children goes beyond anything else in this world. Stephanie proved she was willing to pay the highest price for love. Stephanie s love for her children mirrors the love of Father God. The full extent of God s love for humanity was displayed in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. His finished work on the cross was not intended for the purpose of condemnation, but as a loving ransom for sinners separated from God. 3 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

4 UNDERSTANDING Unpack the biblical text to discover what Scripture says or means about a particular topic. > Have a volunteer read John 3: What did God s love for the world motivate Him to do? What is the promise to those who believe? What was the Son s mission in coming? John 3:16 is the most well-known summary of the gospel within the Bible. Let s resist the urge to glaze over the text due to familiarity. The phrase, For God loved the world, was actually a jaw-dropping statement in first-century Christianity because the Old Testament and other Jewish writings had only spoken of God s love for Israel. John s language and use of the word world and everyone illustrated that God s love was for all people, not just Jews. In addition, God s love involved something far deeper than sentimentality. It involved action. He proved His love by sending His only Son to take the punishment we rightfully deserved. John s favorite description of Jesus is the Son sent by the Father. In Jewish culture, it was a familiar concept that the messenger was like the sender himself. Jesus is the Sent One par excellence and He, in turn, sends His disciples. Monogenes The term monogenes (mah nah gehn AYSS), is best understood from monos (only) and genos (kind, Latin genus), meaning the only one of its kind. In the Old Latin translation, monogenes was translated as unicus, from which we get the word unique. Jesus is God s unique Son in that His essential nature is the same as the Father s. What does verse 18 say the standing is for those who believe? What about those who refuse to believe? This text clearly states that those who believe in the Lordship of Christ are not under condemnation. However, those who refuse to believe neither have a positive nor a neutral standing with God. 4 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

5 > Have a volunteer read Acts 4:12. What does this verse tell us about the universalistic phrase, There are many paths to God? Notes Why do you think non-believers sometimes find this verse restrictive? God didn t send His only Son to suffer and die on our behalf to be a way to God. He sent Jesus to be the way. This text refutes the assertion that people who are sincere followers of other religions can find eternal life. It was an astoundingly gracious act on God s part to send His only Son to die on our behalf. We didn t deserve an intervention to save us it was an act of pure grace. > Have a volunteer read Romans 5:8. How does this passage assure us of God s love for us? Can we take credit for any aspect of our salvation? Why or why not? How does this passage challenge you to show love to the lost? We can be certain of God s love for us because He demonstrated such extravagant grace while we were still sinners. In fact, Paul writes in Romans 5:10 that prior to being reconciled to God, we were His enemies. It is a rare occurrence when a human being will die for a good and kind person, and much less for someone who is unlikeable. It s safe to say most people would have to be under the threat of death to die for someone they love deeply. However, God s love belongs in an entirely different category. Christ didn t die for righteous people 5 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

6 who had done well by others, but for sinners who were ungodly and willfully living in rebellion to God. Both Christ s love and the Father s love were demonstrated on the cross. How does Christ s love differ from the love offered by our culture? How does being a recipient of Christ s love empower us to love the unlovable? Considering the truths from these passages, would you describe Christ-like love as a feeling or a choice? APPLICATION Help your group identify how the truths from the Scripture passage apply directly to their lives. 1 Spend some time contemplating the love that Christ demonstrated to you by going to the cross on your behalf. Did God have other options? How does this reality deepen your love for Christ? Charis Charis (KAH rihss) is the Greek noun referring to an unmerited favorable disposition toward someone or something. In the New Testament, charis is most commonly used in relation to salvation, especially in Paul s writings. Paul used the word charis to explain that salvation comes from God s own choice to show favor in redeeming lost people through faith in Christ. God s undeserved favor wasn t demonstrated to those who hadn t done anything offensive. On the contrary, God showed grace toward those who sinned against Him and were actually His enemies, the epitome of unlikeable (Romans 5:1-2). 2 Do you view love as convenient or costly? How does the biblical definition of love demonstrated by God challenge your view of love? 3 How do the truths from today s study motivate you to share the gospel with the lost in Middle Tennessee and around the world? Do you see yourself as sent in the same way as Christ was sent? 6 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

7 4 What are practical ways you can demonstrate your love this week to people who may or may not deserve it? Notes P R A Y Thank God for the astounding grace He showed by sending Christ on our behalf. Ask that the love of Christ would motivate group members to share the gospel with the lost. Give praise and thanks to Christ for teaching us what real love is, and for dying for us so we could be clean. Ask that He empower group members to live out Christ-like love in their own lives. 7 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

8 FOLLOW UP Midway through this week, send a follow-up to your group with some or all of the following information: > Questions to consider as they continue to reflect on what they learned this week: How have you demonstrated Christ-like love this week? What was the response? > A note of encouragement, following up on any specific prayer requests mentioned during your group gathering. > The challenge to memorize John 3: Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

9 COMMENTARY MARCH 6, 2016 JOHN 3: :16. Is there a verse anywhere in the Bible more well-known and loved than this one? How poignantly it states that eternal life comes not because of anything we do. Salvation comes as a free gift when we believe what God has said. For almost two thousand years people have been adding to the gospel, but the truth still rings clear today whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Nicodemus had superb religious training but very little spiritual insight. He could not grasp Jesus statement that a person must be born from above to experience eternal life. Notes Four times in three verses (vv ) Jesus uses variations of the word believe, perhaps the most important key word in John s Gospel. The Son of God classified the entire human race into two groups those who believe and are not condemned, and those who do not believe and are condemned already. The gospel begins with God s love, penetrates through the cross and the empty tomb, and results in eternal life for those who believe. Morris declared, In typical Johannine fashion, gave is used in two sentences. God gave the Son by sending Him into the world, but God also gave the Son on the cross. Notice that the cross is not said to show us the love of the Son (as in Gal. 2:20), but that of the Father. The atonement proceeds from the loving heart of God. It is not something wrung from Him. Nicodemus would have believed firmly that God loved Israel, but not much in Jewish theology allowed for God to love the world. This is new revelation, the new covenant breadth of the gospel. Jesus had just evoked one Old Testament image in the Pharisee s mind (the snake in the desert), and now He touched on another the aged Abraham sacrificing his only son on the altar (Gen. 22:2). To describe God s love for the world John chose the verb agapao for the first time in his writings. He used it thirty-six times, more than twice as many as any other book of the New Testament except his first epistle in which he used it thirty-one times. But the gospel does not center in God s love, but rather what he gave on the cross the death of his Son. The Bible does 9 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

10 COMMENTARY MARCH 6, 2016 not allow us to merely acknowledge that Christ died for the world; saving faith requires a recognition that he died for each of us individually. The words one and only translate monogenes, which appears again in verse 18. John had already used it in 1:14, 18 and used it again in 1 John 4:9. Notes: The verb perish speaks of eternal death in contrast to eternal life. It represents the opposite of preservation, since death is the opposite of life. Those who refuse God s gift are alienated from Him without hope for both the present and the future. A person need not sin blatantly to perish. One may simply fail to act positively in receiving God s gift. When applied to Judas in John 17:12, we learn that the one who perished was the son of perdition, or in the NIV, the one doomed to destruction, a play on the word apoleo. A word needs to be said here about the section that includes verses If we take these verses separately in our study, they form a single unit of thought in the text and each verse depends upon the others (though many who could quote verse 16 would not be able to recite verses with equal accuracy). Verse 16 tells us that God gave His Son, verse 17 explains why, and verse 18 emphasizes the result. 3: Did all this happen for judgment and condemnation? No. That was never God s purpose. Notice how central Jesus is to the passage. Verse 15 emphasizes the words in him and they appear again in verses 16 18, while verse 17 talks about God s saving the world through Him. Every human being has a choice eternal life or eternal death. And as the Bible describes it, to perish is not to cease existence, but to experience utter failure, futility, and loss an eternity without God. Somebody once said that the world could be divided into two groups those who divide the world into two groups and those who do not. If that is the case, God is definitely in the former category for He divides the saved and the unsaved clearly in these verses. The saved believe and are not condemned; the unsaved do not believe and are condemned. And let us not miss the word 10 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church

11 COMMENTARY MARCH 6, 2016 already. We exist in a state of condemnation by birth our sin natures inherited from Adam. We enter physical life in a state of spiritual death and then our sin natures compound the problem with sinful behavior. Notes: ACTS 4:12 All Peter s sermons to this point ended with an appeal, but there seems to be none here. The appeal, however, is present implicitly. If there is salvation in no other name (v. 12), then obviously one must make a commitment to that sole name that brings salvation. But the appeal is even stronger than that. Peter switched to the first person at the end of the verse, by which we must be saved, amounting to a direct appeal to the Sanhedrin. Peter had been bold indeed. He had come full circle. They asked for the name in whom his authority rested. He answered their question. It was the name, the power of Jesus. He directed the charges. The Council had rejected the one who bore this powerful name. The ultimate verdict rested with them. Would they continue to reject the one whom God had placed as the final stone for his people, the only name under heaven in which they would find their own salvation? The final verdict would rest in their own decision. ROMANS 5:8 We can be sure of God s love since He did so much for us when we were helpless. We were ungodly, we were still sinners, and we were His enemies (v. 10). Jesus died for that kind of person. The word translated for is the Greek preposition huper used in substitution contexts. Jesus died in our place. God freely chooses to love us and by doing so confers worth on us through our faith in Him. 11 Paying the Price of Love Brentwood Baptist Church