From the first moment we hear, “‘For God so loved the world,’” we’re driving down a very familiar road.  It’s easy to think we’ve seen it all and to think we know how God’s going to finish this sentence. 

Kind of like husbands and wives who sometimes finish each other’s sentences, a poor communication skills that builds barriers instead of bridges.  Or, kind of like driving down a familiar road and suddenly being surprised by something you’ve never seen before, maybe a charming old house.  One day, you look in a different direction and something that’s been there all along finally comes into view.  Or, it’s like getting a new set of eyeglasses.  Suddenly images that had once been dull or out of focus become clear and sharp.  The difficulty with John 3 is that it is one of the most familiar texts in all the New Testament.  It’s a familiarity that, if we’re not careful, can breed the presumptuous tendency to think that we already know what it’s going to say so that, when it’s read, we’re not really listening or looking.  This morning let’s let God finish the sentence.  Let’s look in a different direction, ask God for a new set of lenses to see John 3. 

I’ve driven this road many times.  And, what I’ve always seen is the very familiar “‘everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’”  That’s largely due to the way I was trained to see, to the set of lenses I was given as I was growing up.  In order to lead us to think about what life might be like on down the road in this text, I have to tell you a little about the road I’ve traveled up until now.  Some of you may discover you’ve shared my journey.

As I recall, most of the sermons I heard when I was growing up in  small-town, semi-rural west Texas went a lot like this.  “Make sure you stay out of hell and get into heaven.  And, make sure everyone you meet is heaven bound and not hell bound.”  That’s the over-simplified version, but that pretty much covers it.  No matter what the subject, literally every sermon was structured to lead toward an invitation with an evangelistic appeal.  Sermons on heaven and hell are certainly important and so are invitations to follow Christ as Lord.  But, because the sermonic diet week in and week out was so exclusively focused on preparing for life after death it radically shaped the way I thought about my place in eternity and even the way I related to other people. 

That kind of preaching began to make me think of eternity as beginning only after we die.  In eternity, out there somewhere in another time and place, we get to live, as though, right now, we’re really dead and just don’t know it.  Here and now, we’re just biding our time until we get to heaven, where we really start living in the sweet by and by, in a mansion on a hilltop in a neighborhood we couldn’t have even afforded to drive through in this life.  Heaven is a place somewhere else other than where we are now.  God sometimes pays us a visit but heaven is his real home.  We’re down here on earth, in the low rent district.  God is up there, somewhere.  When we die, we get to go up there, to heaven, where God is.  That’s the way I was taught see this world and the next and my place in both.

A group of us were playing in a charity golf tournament in a very exclusive neighborhood, the kind of place most of us could barely afford to drive through on our way to somewhere else.  The homes that lined the fairways were just spectacular.  Finally, Bud spoke for all of us who were feeling a little overwhelmed when he said, “These folks are sure going to have a hard time enjoying heaven!”  We all laughed.  But, even the humor revealed that subtle sense of jealousy we all live with as well as the hope that heaven will finally balance everything out and make us all wealthy in other ways not material. 

That kind of believing can have profound repercussions.  While the hope of heaven is certainly one of the assets of salvation, thinking of life only in terms of future hope can lead people to live with a sense of futility now, that what they’re doing here and now really doesn’t matter.  Only getting to heaven matters, after we die.  Is that the life Jesus promised?  Listening to some who haven’t yet let God finish the sentence, you’d think so.  I once heard a preacher, after taking a very legalistic stand on a number of issues and who seemed quite proud of himself, finish his sermon by saying, “If I couldn’t preach this way I might as well be selling shoes!”  As though preaching about eternity is all that really matters and anyone selling shoes for a living was just biding their time in a meaningless, futile occupation that, at best, helped them pass the time until eternity begins.  Is that the life Jesus promised? 

Let’s let Jesus finish the sentence.  “‘This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world . . . those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’”  This is a present tense promise.  In our new relationship with God we come out into the Light, now, in this world, for this world, so that God will be glorified by our lives, now.  That is the promise of the resurrection. 

Judgment is not so much about what God is going to do to this world because of sin.  It is about what God is going to do for this world in spite of our sin.  In time measureless to us, we will see what John later wrote was revealed to him.  “I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . . (Revelation 21:1).”  God is not going to someday undo what he created, he is going to renew what he created.  We don’t know what that renewed creation will look like but this much is for certain.  There is no way on God’s presently green earth that the green of the God’s new earth will possibly be even a shade off anything less than spectacular.  We won’t be disappointed (Romans 5)!

Jesus’ promise of “‘eternal life’” is present tense, of a life we can have now, in this world, for this world.  The only problem with too much of our thinking about God and eternity is that it pole vaults right past the present back to the future.  It’s about something God will someday do in another time and place and not what God is doing now in this place.

Art Daniel sent me a story just this week about a children’s Sunday School teacher who was talking to her class about how to get to heaven.  The teacher asked the children, “If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?”  “No!” the children yelled.  “If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?”  Again, the answer was, “No!”  “Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my wife, would that get me into Heaven?”  Again, “No!”  “Well,” the teacher asked, “then how can I get into Heaven?”  A five-year-old boy shouted out, “You gotta be dead!”

That’s the way I used to see the world and my relationship to it.  As just a place to bide my time until I died so I could go to another place called heaven where I could then start living.  I was truly so heavenly minded that I was no earthly good.  The scriptures warn us about being so earthly minded we’re blind to what is heavenly good. But, Jesus has promised us so much more than just living to cross one more day off the calendar until we get to go “home.”

While visiting with one of our widows whose husband had just died the day before, a neighbor dropped in from across the street.  This woman’s husband of over six decades had barely been gone a few hours when this well-intentioned neighbor said, “Well, we know he’s in a better place now.”  May I step aside for just a moment and play the role of grief management coach?  If you are trying to comfort someone who has just experienced profound loss and you don’t know what to say, then, don’t.  What people will remember is your presence more than your words.  That is unless you try to comfort them with words that reassure them that their loss is not that bad.  She said, “He’s in a better place.”  My only question is, where does that leave us who are still here in this place?

The “‘eternal life’” God has promised is a life with meaning and purpose here and now, even in our suffering, in this world, for this world.  To be saved means that, we’re in a better place now because heaven is not so much a place as it is relationship.  Jesus once instructed his disciples, “‘As you go, proclaim the good news, The kingdom of God is near (Matthew 10:7).’”  Those who believe are certainly promised a life after this that won’t disappoint.  It will be a time free from the suffering and sin that plagues this physical world.  But, it is not too far off to say that to be in heaven means to be in the presence of God, wherever that is, whenever that is.

The apostle Paul described how we come into that new relationship with God as well as what that new relationship means for our lives now.  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life (Ephesians 2:8-10).” 

When I listen long enough to let God start and finish the sentence this is what I hear.  He “‘loved the world (so much) that he gave his only Son . . ..’”  God loved the world.  This world.  He sent his son into this world.  He sent his son to die, for this world.  The place we live now.  This ball of dirt we walk on in shoes some shoe salesman sold us.  And, there’s more!  In three short weeks we will celebrate the cornerstone of the Christian faith, the day Jesus was raised from the dead.  God not only loved this world so much that he sent his son to be born into it, he loved this world so much that, after his death, he sent Jesus right back into this world, for this world.  Jesus was resurrected right back into the very same world that killed him.  There must be something very special about this world for God to love it that much!

This is what Jesus’ resurrection means for us.  To be saved means to be resurrected from the death of our sin and its consequences in eternity future.  But, it means more!  Salvation is not just a one-way ticket on a heaven bound train out of the low rent district of earthly constraints.  It is a new relationship with God, now and forever, forever and now.  We weren’t saved any less for this world than for the next.  Just as God resurrected Jesus back into this world, he resurrected us back into this world.  We were saved for eternity, for sure, and the clock’s already running.  We were saved for this world, now!  So, whether we’re a shoe salesman or a student, a teacher or a neurosurgeon or a lawyer or a banker or an architect or even, of all things, a preacher, what we do now matters for eternity because, we’re already in it. 

Of course, as we say, I’ve been preaching to the choir, and deacons, and Sunday School teachers and ushers and on an on.  That’s why you stayed here, isn’t it, Cliff Temple?  Twenty something years ago, you could have left this community but you stayed.  You’ve invested untold amounts of time and money and energy in places like Mission: Oak Cliff, feeding, clothing, educating, nurturing and caring.  You’ve committed yourself to other countless practical, hands-on ministries and now you’ve committed yourself to establishing an after school ministry that will impact the lives of children who live in this church’s shadow for years, even decades, to come. 

All these years on this journey to Cliff Temple I was asking others, “Are you going to heaven or hell?” while you were here asking, “How can I help you now?”  You knew that eternity’s clock was already running and that people’s hunger and nakedness and education mattered now, in this world, as much as their soul matters for the next.  You are a Sermon on the Mount kind of people.  You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world! 

Jesus taught us to pray, “‘Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10, NASV).’”  You’ve shown me what happens when heaven and earth get together.  You’ve shown me what happens when people let God finish the sentence that started, “‘For God so loved the world . . ..’”

I just wanted to preach this whole sermon to say thank you!  Thank you for showing me how God intended to finish the sentence he started before time began.  Thank you for the new set of glasses!  I really like what I’m seeing!