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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity |
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September 23, 2007 John 3:16 Do I Know
God? I said last
Sunday that the single most important question in the world is, “Can I
know God?” The Bible’s
answer to that question is, “YES!!”
That naturally leads to the next question, “Do I know God?”
Of course, I can’t answer that for you. I can say that knowing
God, as the Bible uses the term, refers to having a right relationship
with Him. It does not mean to
know about God, but to know Him
relationally, as we might say “I know so-and-so.
We went to school together. We were childhood friends, and are
still friends today. I know
his family. I know his likes and dislikes.
I know him about as well as I know anyone outside of my own
family.” Yet, even this
does not give the full meaning of knowing God, for in Bible language, when
I ask if I know God, I am really asking, “Am I saved?”
As with many questions, we can phrase it in different ways. We
might say, “Do I know Christ as my Saviour?” Or, “Have I been born
again?” Or, “Can I know
that I am accepted by God?” The
way I hear it asked most often is, “Can I know that I am saved?”
The Bible’s answer, again, is, “YES!”
The answer is found in many places and stated in many ways.
We will look at one of the best known verses of
Scripture, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.” When Jesus
said, “everlasting life,” He was talking about being saved. And there
are three important points in His statement. First, is
the means of salvation. How
are we saved? “God … gave his only begotten Son.”
If you were to look at Jn.3:14 you would see that Jesus, talking to
a man named Nicodemus, was referring to the serpent being lifted up in the
wilderness. This comes from
the 21st chapter of the Book of Numbers.
There the Hebrew people are living in the wilderness after being
brought out of Egypt by the power of God and under the leadership of
Moses. But the wilderness was
a tough place, and, rather than thanking God for bringing them out of
slavery, the Hebrews began to murmur against God and against Moses because
of the adversities they faced. So,
the Bible says, God sent “fiery
serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of
Israel died,” (Num. 21:6). Of
course the people suddenly had a revival of faith. Funny, how religious people get when we realize we may be in
the immediate presence of God at
any moment. If only we could
live each day as if it were our last, and as if we would stand before the
Great White Throne of God this very evening.
The Hebrews, sick and dying, begged for mercy, so God instructed
Moses to make a serpent of brass, hang it on a staff, and everyone who had
been bitten by the real serpents, was healed when he looked upon it.
Jesus’ words to Nicodemus say that God the Father was going to
give His only begotten Son, Jesus, by raising Him up in a manner similar
to the way Moses lifted up the serpent.
The difference was that the serpent was made of brass, and had no
life. Jesus was lifted up on
the cross, and there He gave up His life in the place of guilty sinners of
earth who deserved to be on the cross instead of Him.
And His death is the means of our salvation.
He died there for us, in our place, bearing in Himself our sin and
the cost of our reconciliation to God.
Christ died for us, and rose again, that is the means of our
salvation. It is the way God
saved us. Second is
the appropriation of salvation. We
receive salvation by faith. Let
me say here that we do not earn our way into Heaven by being good.
If our actions have earned anything for us, it is hell, for we are
unprofitable servants. We are
rebels against our Heavenly King, and criminals against His righteous
Laws. But, rather than
punishing us for our sins, God chose to forgive us, to save us from the
wrath to come. He offers His forgiveness as a free gift, which we receive
by faith. Faith is simply
trusting what God did in Christ to be everything necessary for your
salvation, and accepting His free offer of forgiveness.
I like to compare faith to receiving a present.
I hope that this Christmas there will be a present under the tree,
wrapped in pretty paper with my name on it.
It will say it is for me, but is it mine now?
No. Will it be mine on
Christmas Eve? No. When will it become mine?
When it is offered to me and I
receive
it. So there are two parts to getting the gift.
There is the giving, or the offering of the gift, and there is the
receiving. The proclamation
of the story of Christ is God’s way of offering the gift of salvation.
Faith is the act of receiving it.
Faith is what Jesus called believing in Him, in Jn. 3:16. Third is the possession of salvation. I am talking about salvation as the result of the appropriation of the means of salvation. I mean this; Christ has died for you. He has born your sins in Himself, and paid their penalty on the cross. That is the first thing. Second, you have, or if you haven’t you need to do this today, but if you are a true Christian you have believed in Jesus by faith, and accepted His free gift of forgiveness. The result of this is that you are now saved. As Jesus said, you have everlasting life. Everlasting
life means you will live with God forever.
You live with God here in this world, and you will live with God in
Heaven for all eternity. Before
you “believed in” Jesus you were dead toward God, and doomed to hell
for eternity. That is what is
meant by the word, “perish.” But
now, in Christ, you have life everlasting in God for all eternity.
And that is a promise from God.
I want to make a very big deal out of a very small word for a
minute. That word is
“have.” Notice that Jesus
did not say “whosoever believeth in him might have everlasting life.
He did not say, if you believe in Him, maybe you have everlasting
life. He said
“whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.” Now, I don’t do this very often because it usually is not helpful, and it puts people to sleep. But today I want to refer to the Greek words and grammar of the Bible. As you know, the New Testament was written in Greek, not English. And in the Greek “have” is in the subjunctive mood, which means it is conditional. A conditional statement in English would be something like, “If you come to the table, you may eat your dinner.” (You might know I would use an example with food in it wouldn’t you?) A condition is stated in that sentence. You must come to the table. There is also a promise stated in that sentence. When you come to the table, when you fulfill the condition, you have the food. The food is yours, and you may eat. It is the same in this verse. There is a condition stated. “Whosoever believeth in him.” You must believe in Jesus as I have described above. Only those who fulfill the condition can go on to receive the promise. And the promise is that you “have” everlasting life. It is yours. You possess it. And one more thing. Notice that it is in the present tense. You have it now. You possess it now. It belongs to you right now, this very minute. Whosoever beleiveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So, can you know God? You can. God has gone to great lengths to make Himself known. Can you know that you are saved? You can. “Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That’s a promise from God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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