We like to quote that famous verse:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

It is a beautiful verse, reminding us that God loved the world. He loved the people everywhere.

Yet, in practice, we don’t always think of this the way it actually reads. If God so loved the world that he gave his son, we should reflect on this question: What was the state of the world when God did this? When God gave his son, were the world’s people good? Were they right? Were they upstanding before God?

In other words, we might ask ourselves: Did the people of the world deserve this?

That is actually how we practically think about this today: I want to be a good person, we might say. Or, knowing I will never be perfect, I might say I want to be a better person.

This is how we often try to justify ourselves. By being a good person, I can be worthy of going to heaven one day. However, the scandal of the situation is this: We don’t deserve it. In fact, we never have deserved God to allow us to go to heaven, and we never will. Yet the verse above is still true: God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

How can these statements possibly work together? How is it possible that, even when we don’t deserve it, God still gave us his Son?

The answer is found in what I read in Romans 5 this morning:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

The nature of God’s love is completely different from the love that we offer as human beings. We tend to love those who show us love. We offer love to those we think deserve it. But God demonstrated his love in a completely different way. He showed his love, and continues to show it even today, by giving his son to us even though we don’t deserve it. Even when we were sinners. Even when we were the worst people. Even when we were against God, that is when God steps in and says he loves us, and then he demonstrates that love by giving his Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice and payment for our sins.

As human beings, we have no way to truly understand that kind of love. Within our own human way of doing things, we have no equivalent type of love here on earth. And yet that is exactly what God did. He loved us in this way: when we were against him, he came to give himself for us.

That is a love worth returning. That is a love worthy of our complete surrender. That is what God desires. He gave himself completely even when we were sinners, even when we were against him. Now God desires that we give ourselves completely back to him in return.