Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross? Because God So Loved the World
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TITLE: Because God So Loved the World
SUBJECT: Jesus
PROPOSITION: Jesus died on the cross because God loved the world enough to sacrifice His own Son for the world’s salvation.
OBJECTIVE: Each listener should be able to explain how God’s love motivated Him to sacrifice His Son, Jesus. Jesus died on the cross because 1) God is a God of Love, 2) The World Needed True Love, 3) The Son Demonstrated that Love.
AIM: That the listener would understand God’s motives in sending His Son to die on the cross.
INTRODUCTION:
1. Read: John 3:16
2. About the Text:
1) This is perhaps the most profound answer to the question.
2) Many cannot fathom this answer because sin has twisted us.
3) Self-protection is the motive that characterizes most of the world.
4) We “love” others to protect self.
5) God’s love is not like our “love.”
6) God doesn’t love for self-protection; He loves for the sake of the loved.
3. Ref. to S, T, P, O, and A.
DISCUSSION: Jesus died on the cross because . . .
I. God is a God of Love
1. God’s love is part of who God is.
1) 1 John 4:8 – “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
2) 1 John 4:16 – “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
2. God’s love doesn’t depend on external circumstances.
1) 1 John 4:19 – “We love Him because He first loved us.”
2) Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
3. God’s love leads to man’s salvation – 1 John 4:10 – “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
II. The World Needed True Love
1. The world is inundated with evil.
1) 1 John 5:19 – “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”
2) Ephesians 2:2-3 – “…in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”
2. God’s love pierces man’s wickedness.
1) Ephesians 2:4-6
2) Titus 3:3-7
III. Jesus Demonstrated that Love
1. Jesus demonstrates to us who God really is.
1) John 1:18
2) Philippians 2:5-10
2. Jesus demonstrates the love of God to us – Rom.5:6-8.
3. Jesus restores our identity to who God intended us to be through His love.
1) Revelation 1:4-6 “John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
2) He gave Himself – Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
CONCLUSION:
1. Ephesians 3:19 – “…to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
2. God so loved the world because . . .
1) God is a God of Love
2) The World Needed True Love
3) Jesus Demonstrated that Love
3. Invitation