The Deep Breath We Don't Take When Hearing, "God So Loved..."

John 3:16 has become the verse everyone knows.  For most, it is probably the first verse they memorized as a child, or new believer.  While this is a great thing, it can also be a not so good thing.  Common things in life often become invisible things.  We have built into our human anatomy an "inhibitory response" that makes us forget common things.  Take the shirt you have on right now for example.  You forgot about it didn't you.  Give thanks to the inhibitory response for that.  Otherwise, the cloth hitting your skin every second would drive you crazy.

This is what has happened with John 3:16.  A statement that should cause us all to take the deep breath of astonishment, does little more than remind us of a WWF wrestler, or something that Tim Tebow advertised on the little black strip under his eye.

The reality is, however, this verse is scandalous.   It is exactly what we need to hear in our day.  The "inhibitory response" that has dragged this verse into our mental cobwebs, has also dragged us into a lifestyle of moralistic selfishness.  Because this verse doesn't carry a punch anymore, neither do we.

I now have a mental picture in my head of a medic trying to revive a person who is in cardiac arrest.  Conventional CPR just isn't working.  The medic has now resorted to violently pounding the person's chest to get their heart beating again.  This is what we need.  And this is also what we need to be doing for others.

This is what Jesus did as he was speaking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews.  He was a religious guy who had it all together.  He came to Jesus one night and spoke with him.  In short, the conversation goes back and forth about the nature of salvation.  Nicodemus is convinced that his own reasoning abilities have shown him and his buddies that Jesus is a teacher from God.  Jesus responds by saying, "Your reasoning abilities are squat.  You need more than a sign.  You need to be born again or else you cannot even see the Kingdom of God."

Nicodemus thought his religious knowledge would provide him acceptance before the Almighty.  After all, he was very different from sinful Gentiles.  He followed the rules.  He did everything right.  Jesus showed him otherwise.

Jesus takes the next few moments to lump Nicodemus into a category he would have never lumped himself into.  It is a category called the "world."  This word in this context does not mean "every single human being on the planet."  It carries with it the categorical connotation of "the world" - both Jews and Gentiles.  But I would take it even further to mean "the world" - the sinful, jacked up, rebellious, dark "world" (cf. 1:5, 9-11; 3:19).  While Nicodemus thought the problem with the "world" was Gentile sinners; Jesus told him the problem with the world was Nicodemus himself!

If we are not careful, we too, will exclude ourselves from the "world." To guard ourselves from this we must define the word properly.  Allow me to give a 21st century definition:

World [wurld] -noun
1.  the guy you look up on the sex offender website to make sure he does not live in your neighborhood
2.  the kid who punches your kid in the mouth, that you now detest to the point you want him expelled
3.  the lady who killed her children by drowning each of them in the bathtub
4.  the guys wearing hoods, standing behind an innocent missionary, who then proceed to decapitate the missionary, along with his family, with a steak knife
5.  the lazy guy, who has no job, lives off of the government, and rides around town in a $40,000 car
6.  the girl at school who is known for her "history" with just about every guy in town
7.  the people who own the porn shops next to my church
8.  the 70-year-old guy who was trying to get into one of the porn shops one Sunday morning at 9am
9.  the doctor that considers it his life's mission to abort little babies
10.  the person who's picture is on your license
11.  the guy who posted this blog

That's the world God loved so much that Jesus, the Son of God bled.  When we look down upon people because they are so "lost", we must understand that those are the ones He came to save. If we do not consider ourselves as part of the categorical "world" in the Jn 3:16 sense of the term; if we do not consider ourselves "lost", then we must conclude that Jesus didn't come for us (Luke 19:10).