Love Beyond Measure

Put yourself in Jesus’ sandals in heaven right now, and there’s this body of believers that He has started 185 years ago. He’s listening in heaven, and He looks down on us. I mean, here’s us singing this song that the King is coming. Imagine how overjoyed Jesus is by that. To know that this body of believers that He started and He has held for 185 years is still looking forward with joy to the day when He comes to reclaim His own. Man, isn’t that good news? Isn’t that good news? I mean, you think about what we do here. You know, everything we do here at Sauldam Baptist Church, not just, you know, the 11 o’clock worship hour, but everything we do here is done in light of the fact that there is a King who has come, and He’s begun a kingdom that we get to live in. Though we happen to be citizens of Charleston or America in 2026, the real kingdom that we live in is the kingdom of God, and we know that one day the King is coming again, and that is good news. Man.

In light of that, we spend some portion of every Sunday morning service in prayer because we want to call on that King, knowing that a King gets to do whatever a King wants to do in His kingdom, right? So we’re just going to ask that the King would continue to work here on earth, making Charleston and the world as it is in heaven. We’ve been praying all month for the Janie Chapman State Missions Offering. If you’re not familiar, this is a way that Southern Baptist churches in the state of South Carolina get to partner together across our geographic boundaries, and we get to pool money for the sake of missions in the state of South Carolina. Anybody else noticed maybe in the last couple years that the state of South Carolina is getting more and more populated and the roads are more and more frenetic and things like that happening? Well, as followers of Jesus, while we may begrudge rising property taxes, we love the fact that more and more people are coming into our community because that means that we get to tell more and more people about Jesus. So this offering, the Janie Chapman State Missions Offering, directly funds missions efforts in the state of South Carolina. That’s really cool.

And one of the ways that we here at Sauldam Baptist Church get to specifically take part in this, which I am overjoyed about, is we get to specifically root for and support a new church in Greenville called Storyline Church. A few months ago, y’all voted to become the sending church for Storyline Church, a new church being started up on the east side of Greenville. Greenville’s experiencing the same thing we are here down in Charleston. There’s more and more people moving into Greenville that need to know about Jesus, and another church is going to start to tell them. So what I want you to do, if you are comfortable praying out loud, then grab a neighbor. If you’re uncomfortable praying out loud, then just put your head down and nobody’s going to bother you. And what we’re going to do over the next few moments is just pray for Storyline Church and the Janie Chapman State Missions Offering funds. You take it away. I’ll put a bow on it. I got some introverts laughing because I finally gave them permission to be by themselves. So y’all take it away. Pray for a few moments.

Holy Spirit, thank you for today. Thank you for gathering us. Thank you for holding us, for keeping us. Thank you for bringing us to this few moments that we have to reflect on the word that You inspired. Pray that as we spend the next few moments and I open it, that You would bless this, that You would accomplish the purposes that You have for it. For anybody that doesn’t yet know You as Lord and Savior, I pray that You get a hold of them. And for those that do, Lord, would You take them deeper into their relationship, deeper into love, deeper into the mission that You’ve saved us for. Lord, I want to thank you for Janie Chapman and the Women’s Missionary Union. Lord, thank you for what they have done in the past and what this fund continues to do today. Lord, I pray that You’ll bless the funds that we are giving and that all the other churches are giving. Lord, we were just saying about a few moments ago that when You are in the midst of something, no matter how much we contribute, it becomes much. So Lord, I pray that you would take our contributions to the Janie Chapman State Missions Offering and you would make them much in your kingdom. You would accomplish much through them. Thank You for Jake and Rachel Borum and thank You for Storyline Church. And go ahead and thank You for that church in the past tense. Thank You for establishing it. Thank You for holding it. Thank You for starting it. Lord, they’re about to have their first vision gathering next month, as You know, and I’m just begging that You would bring the right people to that gathering. Lord, people that are hungry for a new community that’s going to be founded on Your word, not on hype. God, a church that’s going to live for Your mission, not all the other… fake missions that we could live for, a church that’s going to be led biblically, not just according to the whims of culture. Lord, I pray that You would establish this church, please. Father, over the next few minutes, would You please recenter us on Yourself? Would You help us to leave here today looking a little bit more like Jesus? It’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen.

There’s this wild moment in the Old Testament out of the book of Numbers, chapter 21. Don’t turn there. I’m just going to kind of summarize the story for you. Moses has led the people of Israel out of Egypt. You know, they had this exodus moment, this wild, let my people go. All these plagues, all these signs, they paint the blood of the lamb over the doorpost. God passes over them. God frees them from the people of Egypt. He parts the Red Sea. They walk through on dry land. God crushes the Egyptians. And they get to the wilderness. They’re in their wilderness wanderings on the way from Egypt to the promised land, what we now call Israel, the land of Israel, at least. And as they’re on their way, they are just normal people. They’re like you and me. They have their own problems, their own issues, their own preferences, their own trip-ups, all their own failures, all the same stuff that we deal with just thousands of years ago.

And one of the particular problems that the people of Israel experienced in the wilderness was just complaining. They would just complain all the time. God, You freed us from Egypt. And now we’re going to die here in the wilderness. Imagine being God, being like, I just freed you from Egypt. God, we don’t have any food. So He literally rains this bread down on the ground. And they get tired of this miraculous bread from heaven. God, all You give us is this miracle bread. We want some bird. We want some meat. So God brings the quail and the quail are just covering the ground. You’re just gathering it. Your five-year-old son is just getting the quail, hunting it like that. Man, God, all You give us is this miracle bread and this miracle quail. What are You doing, God? And God is like, enough. I’ve had enough of your complaining.

And He does this crazy thing in Numbers chapter 21. As a physical reminder of how their complaining is stinging the ears of God, God sends all these snakes into the camps of Israel, these serpents. And the serpents are doing what God designed them to do. They start biting the people. These are venomous snakes. They’re biting the people. People are starting to get sick. Their legs are starting to puff up from where they’ve been bitten. And the people are realizing God is judging us. What in the world is going on? How do we get out of this mess? God tells Moses, make a bronze serpent and lift it up. And whenever the people who have been bitten by the snakes look on the serpent, I will heal them of their snake bites. God uses this real life practice, this physical, visceral moment, to help point out their spiritual issue. They’re complaining against Him. They need a savior, not just from these snakes. They need a savior from the issues that live inside of them. These deceptive, venomous issues.

You fast forward a couple thousand years and Jesus is talking with a well-known religious figure named Nicodemus. Nicodemus is super curious about this guy, Jesus Christ, this man, miracle rabbi teacher from Nazareth. He comes to Him at night because though Nicodemus has some legitimate questions and even faith, he’s also got a lot to lose to be seen talking with Jesus publicly. You see, Jesus at this point is already starting to speak against the religious establishment. Nicodemus represents that. He is one of the upper teachers of all of Israel. So Nicodemus says, “I’ve got this legitimate question and these desires for something real, but I’ve also got all this social clout, and I don’t want to make a misstep there. What do I do? I’ll go see Him at night.” Nicodemus goes to Him at night and starts asking Him questions and says, “Hey, we know that You’re from God. No one could do the signs that You’re doing unless God were with Him.” And last week we looked, Jesus immediately turns the corner of the conversation, and Jesus says, “Unless somebody is born again, he can’t see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus is like, “What? How can somebody that’s already been born go back into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?” Jesus is like, “No, no, no, no. You’re missing the whole point. You’ve got to be born of the water and of the Spirit to live in My kingdom.” Nicodemus is so confused. “What do you mean? What’s this mean, Morris? What’s this mean, Caroline? You’ve got to be born again. You see, Nicodemus, it’s like this. When the people of Israel were in the wilderness and the snakes were biting them, and Moses made that serpent and he lifted it up, and whenever people looked on the serpent, they’d be saved. It’s kind of like that.”

Turn to John chapter three. As you’re doing so, I want to point out a few things. John, the author of the Gospel of John, a personal friend and a devoted disciple of Jesus, captures what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus. And he captures this incredible moment where Jesus looks at Nicodemus and He tells Nicodemus, “You need a healing deeper than physical snake bites because you have an issue of your soul called sin. You need a healing for a disease inflicted upon you by the original deceiver named Satan, who came as a snake. You, Nicodemus, are utterly lost. You are utterly dead, and you are utterly hopeless without My Father’s intervention. That’s why I came.”

Last week, we looked at this miraculous truth that the Holy Spirit rebirths us into God’s kingdom. This morning, we’re going to look at why we need it. So last week, we saw the solution. We saw part of the problem. This week, we’re going to look at the other half of the situation.

As you’re turning to John chapter three, I want to make a bit of a disclaimer this morning, mostly with how I’m hoping to preach this message. A few years ago, Becca and I were up at the Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center, for this pastoral retreat. And I got to hear this pastor speak. And he said something about preaching that changed my whole world when it comes to what I get to do for y’all. He said, “The people don’t need to hear me preach a really polished message. You don’t need that. What you need is to interact with God. If that happens while I’m explaining history, great. If that happens when I get all, you know, super excited and up, great. What you need is to experience God.” This morning, I’m going to take us through a few exercises and end with a moment of personal reflection where my prayer, Paul, is that you would just experience God. God today. That’s my prayer for you.

Some of y’all may have noticed over the last about two months or so, I don’t do a whole lot of stuff on the screens anymore. I was realizing I was getting distracted by the screens. I was preaching the screens instead of just kind of preaching with you guys. So I’m trying to change some things. I’m still really green as a preacher, but that’s, that’s where I’m hoping to go. And you’ll see what I’m saying here in a few minutes.

This is John chapter three, verses 14 through 21. I hope you’re there already. Remember, this is Jesus speaking to Nicodemus, giving us part two of what He started last week. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way.” If you memorized it, say it with me. “He gave His one and only Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to condemn the world. But to save the world through Him. Anyone who believes in Him in the Son, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, anyone who believes in Him is not condemned. But anyone who Does not believe is already condemned because he’s not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. This is the judgment. The light has come into the world and the people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Lord. For everyone who hates the light and avoids it so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God. For everyone who hates the Lord.

This passage helps explain why Jesus came and what Jesus gives. Flat out, Jesus came because God loves you beyond measure. Somebody in the room needs to get it from their head to their heart this morning. God loves you. God’s wild about you. You keep God’s wild about you. God loves you. God loves you beyond measure. He loves you beyond Himself. In fact, Zephaniah chapter 3, it says that when God thinks about you, you know what He’s doing? Is He doing this? Is He doing that? No. Zephaniah chapter 3 says that He sings over you. He dances over you. His face shines on you. God loves you.

Jesus came ultimately because God loves you. And God doesn’t love you the way that I love coffee and fajitas. What’s the deal? You see, my love for coffee, it runs quite deep. And at about 9 a.m., if I have not engaged in this relationship, I start to feel it viscerally. You know what I mean? But here’s the deal. Coffee, coffee can’t be what I give my ultimate soul to because it’s just like a, it’s just a thing. I enjoy it, but too much of it’s actually bad for me. God doesn’t love you like coffee. He doesn’t love you like fajitas. He doesn’t love you the way the world describes love.

The way the world describes love is so transactional. It’s so, Wes, if you do something for me, then I’ll do something for you, and we’re going to call that love. That’s not how God describes love. God’s love for us, it’s even beyond and better than even how we treat marriage these days. You know, it is so easy to get married in America today. You just go down to the courthouse or whatever and get married because you love somebody, but man, a couple years in, they stop living up to your expectations or they start violating your preferences. And all of a sudden, your love for them runs empty because you never actually loved them to begin with. God does not love you in that way.

No, look at how God loves you. God so loved, verse 16 tells us, that He gave. God’s love for you is always shown through sacrifice. His affection for you is shown through giving to you. And look at who He loves, verse 16. For God loved the who? Say it again, like people who are confident. God loved the anybody. You think about that. Love world. Loves us so much He’d give up His own Son. But let’s think about who He gave His Son up for. Romans 5, 6 through 8 says this. While we were still pretty good? No. While we were still doing a really good job keeping the rules, Beth? No. While we were still well-meaning but sometimes making mistakes? No. While we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Rarely will someone die for a just person, though for a good person, someone might even dare to die. Verse 8, God proves His love for us we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

You see, God doesn’t just love the best parts of the best people. He doesn’t just love your best intentions. He doesn’t love how well you can sing in church. He didn’t send His Son for how well you can keep all the rules. God loves you and He loves you so much that He gave up His very best while you were helpless, stuck, lost in your sin, utterly dead, in no possible way able to achieve His favor. That’s when God loved you with His sacrifice. God loves you like crazy. Think about this text and how God so loved us that He gave up His Son.

I’ve been blessed now to have four kids. If God came to me tonight and said, Jeremy, you could keep being the pastor of Sauldam Baptist Church for another 30 years, but you get to give up one of your kids to do it. I’m gone. I’m not giving up my kids. I’m not going to sacrifice one of my kids, Even for people I deeply love. And y’all love us. Man, you show your love to us in tangible and emotional and mental ways all the time. The amount of texts I get that saying, “Hey, love you, praying for you, rooting for you,” all the gifts you guys give our family, all the ways that you show us affection and devotion. But still, man, if it cost the life of my son, couldn’t do it.

Yet God looks at a world full of people who sin against Him, who bring shame to God’s name, who fail to show God any sort of real affection. And God says, “I’m going to give my son up for them.” That’s how much God loves you. He doesn’t love you because you could do things for Him. He doesn’t love you because you can try to keep all the rules. He doesn’t love you because you come to church all the time. He doesn’t love you because of any of those things. Now, He appreciates them. Every good parent would appreciate their kids saying thank you. Every good parent would appreciate their kids’ obedience. But God doesn’t love you for those things. God loves you because He loves you.

Tell us why Jesus came. Let’s think about what Jesus gives us. Verses 15 and 16 are super obvious. Jesus gives us life. We are dead in our sin. Jesus gives us life. That is the way it is. There is not life found in any other source than Jesus Christ. Commercials will promise life. Bankers will promise life. Lovers will promise life. None of them can deliver what only Jesus can give, which is true, satisfying, soul level for all of eternity life. And we need that too because we are utterly, hopelessly dead in our sin.

This is how the Bible describes us in our death. Put to death what belongs to your earthly nature. Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, greed, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, lying to one another. That’s one of the more mild lists of the New Testament. We’re dead. We’re hopeless. Did anybody else hear themselves in that list? That’s us. And the only way out of that is not through self-improvement. It’s not through trying harder and it’s not through religion. The only way out of our spiritual death is through the life of Jesus. We are dead in our sin and Jesus gives us life.

Man, some of us in the room today are living in that. Man, you’ve been to church so many times. You know all the stories. You’ve listened to thousands of sermons better than any sermon I could ever preach. Yet you are still locked in these evidences of death. You know, man, I’ve read the Bible a lot, but I’ve got this unshakable anger that I cannot uproot out of my soul. I’ve sang a lot of worship songs, but man, I still gossip and covet and want what people have and I tear their names down if I can’t have it. Why is this? Because you know that Jesus came to give you life, but you’ve never actually embraced it before. We were dead, so Jesus came to give us life.

What else did Jesus give us? Verses 17 and 18 say that we are condemned. Jesus forgives. God’s verdict on us is set. We are guilty. The question is, who will be charged for our guilt? In fact, I want to do something. I want to go back to that list in Colossians chapter 3. This morning, I’m getting dressed for church and I’m looking for the robe that I graduated from seminary with. I couldn’t find it, so just imagine I’m wearing a judge’s black robe right now. I’ve got a good commentary in my hands on the book of Romans called A Courtroom Drama. I want you to close your eyes, put yourself in the courtroom of heaven. God is standing as judge. Your life is standing as the evidence. Jesus Christ sitting in the jury box. Curious if any of these charges apply to your life. Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, greed, idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, lies. You sit looking at the evidence of your life. Judge on the throne grabs his gavel. Guilty of sexual impurity. Guilty of immorality. Guilty of lust. Guilty of greed. Guilty of anger. Guilty of wrath. And the list just goes on and on. You can open your eyes. God looks at us. Says you are utterly guilty. What do you do with somebody who is found guilty of charges in a court of law? What happens to them, guys? Jacob Hill, are these fake or are these real? These are real. You Got a lot of power in your hands right now, okay? The next 30. This wasn’t planned. What do you do in a court of law when somebody is found guilty of their charges? Put them in jail. Nolan, you come check these things out. Just tug on them. I just need some help. Can you get me out? No? Okay. All right, let’s go for Al. Al? Maybe it requires a lady’s touch. Miss Paula? I don’t think so. Thank you, Rick.

Think deep down. We all know this is us. We’re guilty. We try to bust ourselves out. I work out sometimes. I can’t get out. And we try to bust ourselves out by giving Jesus a little bit of money. We try to bust ourselves out by coming to church a lot. We try to bust ourselves out by treating people well. We say grace before we eat. We try not to cuss as much as we did last week. We try not to watch the stuff online that we did last week. None of that changes my state. Because I’m still guilty. I’m still locked up. So we need somebody to come and set us free. And who sets us free, church? Jesus. That’s exactly right.

You know what Jesus does, though? He doesn’t just take our record of wrongs and just cancels them, because that would actually be extremely unjust. Let’s put them on the cross as best you can. Jesus steps out. That’s perfect, Jacob. Thank you so much. Jesus steps out of the jury box and says, Jeremy is guilty. I will take his place. Clarence is guilty. I take his place. Roy is guilty. I take his place. Becky and Donna and Lauren, we are guilty. Yet Jesus comes and takes our place. And we call that the gospel.

We were all lost and dead and condemned in our sin. And Jesus frees us from what we deserve, makes a way for us to be forgiven, and He sets us free so that we do not have to be bound by the shackles of our sin or what we deserve. Isn’t that good news? Man, you have been told that you are a mostly good person who has made a couple mistakes that a God up in heaven just can’t quite seem to overlook. And it’s so much worse than that. Before God, we are infinitely, detestably, unholy, guilty. Every white lie, every moment of road rage, every time you’ve seen something you know isn’t yours and you’ve lingered on it, God up in heaven looks at you guilty. Jesus came to forgive us.

Finally, verses 19 through 21, we are trapped in darkness, and Jesus shines His light. Man, that’s the life we live, trapped in darkness. Anybody else been in this place where you, in just these quiet moments, you hear these voices and these accusations in your head? Anybody been in this place where you’re just trying to live your life and what you hear is you are a failure. You’re detestable. Messed up again. You can never be as good as they think you are. You’ve got to keep hiding. It’s not even worth it anymore. Does God really love you? Is it worth continuing? Maybe one more time. Maybe one more drink. Maybe then you’ll finally have the life you want.

Jesus came to set you free from those dark, demonic voices. That weighted blanket of despair that sits on your shoulders and drags you to the earth. This state of feeling like you live your life in a fog and you can never get yourself out of it. Jesus comes to shine a light on your soul. What I have found is that oftentimes we try to escape darkness through substances, spirituality, or experiences. We run to the next bottle or the next drug. We run to church or we get to the next high and the next exciting thing in life because we’re trying to escape the darkness. Guess what? It’s not going to work. You haven’t been made. You haven’t been made for opiates, opioids. You haven’t been made even for church services. You haven’t been made for emotional, sentimental highs. What you have been made for is Jesus Christ and to find your satisfaction in Him. He is the only living water that can fill the void, the thirst of your soul.

I know for some of us in the room, you have been running to substances and experiences to try to fill that void. And I want to tell you there’s a better way. We have a ministry for you called Celebrate Recovery. Every Sunday night, six o’clock, love to walk alongside you as you find recovery and life from the things That would bind you down. Robbie and his team do a great job. Six o’clock here tonight, they would love to welcome you in a place where your name’s not going to be broadcast. I don’t even know everybody who attends CR. The only ones I know are the ones that tell me they’ve gone. Man, totally anonymous, up to you. You’ll find freedom there.

So Jesus came because God loves us. So how should we respond? I’m trying to make this quick because I want to get to something at the end. There’s two primary ways. Jesus in verse 18 and verse 19 tells us two things we ought to do because of Him. The first is this, we ought to believe in His name. That word belief is living loyalty and trust. It means to lean upon. It means to pledge allegiance to. It means to live in light of.

In fact, you all already know what it means to believe in something because you sat down in that pew. You do something for me real quick. This will be as fast as you guys are. Can everybody stand up for me? Do you know the structural integrity of that pew? Okay, Rick does or whoever said yeah. Some of y’all know exactly how much weight that pew can hold. Most of us are normal and we don’t. And when you came in here a few minutes ago, you sat down. So go ahead and sit back down. That’s what believing in Jesus is. Resting on, sitting on. That’s what Jesus says to do. Sit on Me. Believe on Me.

The second thing we ought to do is to walk in the light. Here’s the deal. Christ is the Lord of light, which means His followers walk in the light. Sin makes us want to hide. It makes us want to run. It makes us want to cover up. And Jesus is offering freedom in exposure where you would feel free to be able to walk in the light, where you could develop a lifestyle of confessing on the outside what you’re feeling on the inside, where you can learn how to walk in the light.

We’re going to start something a few Wednesday nights from now called Soul Care. I’m super excited about this. Pam is going to help lead this for us. We’re going to take a few weeks to look at what does it mean to care for your soul. And one of the best ways we care for souls is developing a place where we as a church can confess what’s going on in our lives. Not just divulge the worst secret parts of us, but also to be honest about what we feel and think on the inside. And I invite you on Wednesday nights, after that incredible dinner at 5:15, stay at six o’clock for Bible study and learn about how we can care for our souls by walking in the light.

So here’s where I’m trying to draw us to. Hope everybody got a bulletin on their way in. If you did, you go ahead and pull the bulletin or the sermon response guide out. If you didn’t, that’s okay. We’ve got something on the screens for you. We’re going to take about three minutes. One of the musicians, I’m not sure who, one of the musicians is going to play a little bit of music for us. For three minutes, you are all alone with God. You’re not talking to your neighbor. You’re not giggling. You’re not shaming somebody else in your mind. Just you and the Lord.

I want you to consider two questions. What do you hear Jesus telling you? And what is Jesus telling you to do in response? If you take a few moments, the musicians are just going to play. I want you to write down or think about what is Jesus telling you to do and how should you respond? You take a few moments. If you need to pray, I’m right up here to pray. If not, just write it down. What is Jesus telling you to do?

Some of us may feel like God is telling you, you’ve never actually stepped from darkness to light before. Man, your step is to say, Jesus, free me. Free me from the darkness. Others, you may realize that you’ve never experienced the love of God in your soul. So what God might be telling you is saying, hey, call on Me, give your life to Me, invite Me into your soul. Others of you may realize that there is some unconfessed sin or issue going on. And Jesus may be saying, hey, before you leave today, grab someone you trust and get this out loud.

Because when we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Some of us may be realizing that Jesus has been asking us to share the hope of the gospel with one of our friends or our family members. And today you need to resolve to tell somebody else in this room, “I’ve got to share this hope with whoever that is. Would you pray for me this week that I’ll do it?” I mean, we believe the Holy Spirit still speaks. Amen. He is living. He is with us. And He wants to get a hold of us and direct us in our lives.

Before you leave today, if there’s that nagging thing, do not, do not, do not go home or go to lunch without sharing it with somebody else. Doesn’t have to be me. Make it somebody that you trust, that you know will hold you accountable, that will give you the encouragement that you need.

Let me pray for everybody right now. Father, thank you for sending your son, your very best. Jesus, thank you for giving us life and forgiveness and light. Holy Spirit, thank you for speaking and applying these truths to our souls. Help us please to walk in them. We love you. We want to love you more. Thank you for loving us. Amen.