FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

Scripture: John 3:1-17

INTRODUCTION

When I accepted the call to come to Atlanta twelve years ago, some members of the Pastor Nominating Committee told me about the strong tradition of mission outreach here in this church. Soon after my arrival, I discovered that what I had been told was true…and then some! In those days, we were helping to support mission workers and projects in six different countries – Japan, China, Taiwan, Zambia, Zaire and Lebanon. Moreover, I learned that this congregation had sent one of its own members – Dr. Barbara Nagy – to serve as a medical missionary in Africa. What’s more, there was great excitement about our annual Mission Conference, and earlier that spring (March, 1990), we raised $75,000 to be deployed to other parts of the world for the work and witness of Jesus Christ.

So you can imagine how grateful I was, as the new pastor, to become involved with a mission-minded church like this one. And I am glad to report, that over the last twelve years, we have continued to maintain and expand that mission tradition, focusing our attention on building partnerships with our brothers and sisters in Kenya, Haiti and Brazil; promoting youth mission trips to Honduras, Scotland, Jamaica and other countries; reaching out through the Presbyterian Answer to Hunger, with its offices here, to help feed starving people in Nicaragua and Ghana, West Africa; and helping to support our own members in mission outreach overseas – Carrie Guyton, until last year in Khazistan, Lucy Jones in Switzerland and Marthame and Elizabeth Sanders in their ministry with the Palestinian people in Ismel.

All of that and so much more is happening through the mission outreach of this congregation, as we seek to respond to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, who said Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28).

But what I did not fully understand back in the early 1990’s, and what still overwhelms me to this day, is the international flavor and spirit of this congregation right here at the corner of 16^th and Peachtree Streets. The first person I met when I walked through these doors was Lawrence Mbagara, a pastor from Kenya who was studying at ITC. He embraced me with open arms and said with a smile on his face, “Welcome to the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta!” And we, all of us, have come to know other pastor/students from Africa – more than 15 of them during the past decade – who have led us in worship and with their families have become active members of this church.

The same is true of our international Sunday school class, with a large room full of people each week from many nations across the world – women and men, growing together in their faith, who have found a home here in this place.

We have also been privileged to welcome refugee families into the life and work of this parish – families from Vietnam, Kosovo and most recently, five men from The Sudan who are still settling in to their new surroundings.

Then there’s the Children’s Cross Connection ministry, led by Rose Emily Bermudez and headquartered here in our church. They are bringing more and more children from other nations to hospitals in America and especially in Atlanta for medical care and surgery. Many of you have welcomed those children and their families into your hearts and homes.

That is the case at Villa International as well, located nearby to Emory University and sustained by the leadership of a number of our members, which helps to host doctors and nurses and mission workers during their visits to Atlanta.

But the one international ministry in our congregation which has been most visible for the longest duration of time is AMIS – The Atlanta Ministry With International Students. Nearly twenty-five years ago, Fahed Abu-Akel, an ordained Presbyterian Palestinian pastor (and I don’t know another like him!), had a vision to welcome and embrace students from other countries who attend this city’s colleges and universities – to welcome them into our churches and into our homes.

Fahed has said to us over and over again, “The world is at our doorstep.” And that vision, which has become a vital ministry, is flourishing here, which is abundantly clear on this International Student Sunday as we and many of the host families from other AMIS congregations worship together with our international guests and say to them, “We are glad that you have come!”

II.

Now if we were to ask all of those men, women and children who have been led to this church from other countries and different cultures, to choose one verse from the Bible that is most familiar to them, I think they would select our text for today from John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Two Sundays ago (December 16), when our new friends from The Sudan – Daniel Deng, Peter Kuol, Peter Manyuon, Garbriel Thuc and Bona Tong – led us in the lighting of the Advent candle, that’s the verse they quoted both in English and in their native Dinka language. And as those men stood before us and spoke the words that most of us know by memory, the Holy Spirit moved in a mighty way throughout this sanctuary. Why? Because this verse describes the heart of the gospel and binds us together as people of faith who belong to an international community of grace.

So think with me for the next few moments about what the words from John 3:16 really mean.

The verse begins with a universal proclamation

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD…,

reminding us that God loves people of every race, nation, color and culture equally the same. There are no favorites in His kingdom on earth – each of us and all of us are imprinted at birth with the divine seal of approval: created in the image of God. And what He desires is that we will love one another as sisters and brothers in His vast human family that now numbers more than 6 billion people on this planet.

But something went wrong a long time ago. We call it “the fall” of humanity in the Garden of Eden, and a world that might have been was invaded by sin. All these years later, we are still reaping the whirlwind of strife and contention, conflict and division among families and nations, races and religions which literally exploded before our eyes on September 11, right here in America.

The sad and tragic reality is that there were people from more than fifty different countries working in the World Trade Center towers that day. God loved each and every one of them, and His heart was broken just as our hearts were broken when so many of them were lost. It was not God’s will for that to happen, because God’s will is good. And even now, especially now in the wake of that disaster, the healing power of His Holy Spirit is at work across this world to bring hope and peace and reconciliation to America and Afghanistan, to the Middle East and Sudan and Northern Ireland, and all of the war-torn places on this earth.

We Christians need to remember and to believe that promise is true as we read the universal proclamation of John 3:16 –

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD.

And the one reason, the only reason we can know it is true is because of the second part of this verse, which says, For God so loved the world…

THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON.

You see, the universal proclamation of God’s love has been given to us, once and for all, through the personal revelation of Jesus Christ. He was born as a child in Bethlehem to live among us and reveal to us God’s great love. That is what Christmas is all about. He grew to become a man and taught us how to serve, how to care and how to share with one another. That was the lesson of His life. And as He died on the cross with forgiveness on His lips and rose from the grave in glory on Easter day, He revealed God’s plan to conquer death and sin, and to restore us to a right relationship with Him.

That is the good news of the gospel, sent from God down to earth through the birth, life, death and resurrection of His only Son. It was and is a personal revelation, human and visible so that we could understand. And yet, the revelation in Jesus is also holy and mysterious, a divine intervention which none of us can or ever will completely comprehend.

Karl Barth, one of the greatest theologians of the 20^th century, was asked once how he understood that revelation. He thought for a moment and then replied that it all came down to a verse he had learned as a child: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

CONCLUSION

And that takes us to the final dimension of the most familiar verse in the Bible. The universal proclamation is For God so loved the world, and the personal revelation tells us that He gave His only Son, which leads us to the eternal expectation that

WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.

Notice please, that those words are positive, not negative. They are hopeful instead of fearful. They are inclusive rather than exclusive. And if or when we turn that wonderful invitation into a foreboding warning that intends to “scare the hell out of people,” then we have lost sight of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God wants all people to receive His grace and believe in His promises, here on this earth and someday in heaven. That is why He sent His Son Jesus, to forgive our sin and to show us the way. With outstretched arms and an open heart, He calls all of us today to follow Him.

Over the past twelve years, on mission trips and preaching tours, it has been my privilege to travel to Haiti and Scotland, Holland and England, Israel and Canada, Kenya and South Africa. In each of those countries, I have heard Christians proclaim the name of Jesus in different languages and tongues. In large churches and great cathedrals, and in small chapels and family living rooms, I have worshipped with fellow believers using different liturgies, prayers and hymns. And on the walls of those homes and houses of worship and medical centers and educational buildings, I have seen pictures and portraits and icons of Jesus with many different faces, representing a wide variety of nationalities and races.

But in every place, including here in this congregation, with Americans and all of our international members and friends, there is one verse that we hold in common which unites us and binds us together as the church. And as we close, I am going to ask you to stand with me now and say it in your own language, remembering that we are, in all of our diversity, the body of Christ on earth.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish but have eternal life!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.