Sermon Tone Analysis

We all want to go to heaven — but what do you have to do to go there?

I once read a survey of multi-millionaires, in which they were asked, “How much would you be willing to pay for a reserved spot in heaven?”

The average answer was $640,000.

Now that’s cheap, compared to the price of what it really took: as we saw last week, it cost the blood of the “only begotten”, perfect Son of God Himself, which was the only thing that could have paid for our sins.

$640,000 is NOTHING compared to that!

But now that Jesus has paid that incomprehensible price for our salvation, HOW do we get what He did on the cross, applied to our lives so that we are saved?

This is an important question.

How do you get what Jesus died for you to have?

some would say “Get baptized”

some would say “Take the the Lord’s supper”

some would say “walk down an aisle and make a decision”

some would say “pray the words of a certain prayer”

Some of these things are good, but NONE of them is really the right answer in itself.

We find the answer to that question in the words of this great verse that we are looking at this morning:

“that whoever BELIEVES IN HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

These words hold the key that unlocks salvation for us.

Let’s look at them one by one: “Whoever … believes … in Him”.

I. “BELIEVES”: salvation by faith

First, let’s look at this word, “believes”; this is the first key word — and really, if you understand what it means, it is the ONLY word needed for salvation!

What do you need to do to be saved?

“Believe.”

This is the vital doctrine of “justification by faith” or “salvation by faith.”

It basically means that what we need to do to be saved is to believe, or “have faith” in Jesus Christ.

We see throughout the New Testament this doctrine of “justification by faith:

— Jesus said here in John 3:16 that “whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

— John wrote later in this book that these things have been written

“that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

(20:31)

In Acts 16 the Philippian jailer asked Paul & Silas

In Acts 10:43 Peter preached that

Romans 3:22 says

Over and over again, the Bible makes it clear that we receive the benefits of what Jesus did for us on the cross “by faith”, or by “believing in Him.”

Salvation is by FAITH.

We briefly mentioned a couple of weeks ago an Old Testament story that illustrates this.

Numbers 21 tells how during the Exodus in the wilderness, the people of Israel complained against God and Moses, and so God sent serpents who bit the people, and they were dying.

So they confessed their rebellion against the Lord, and so God told Moses to do this: He told him to make a replica of a serpent out of bronze, and put it up on a pole, and He said: “Everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”

So Moses made that bronze serpent, and he put it up on a pole, and whoever was poisoned, and looked at the bronze serpent on the pole, “he lived.”

We may think: “That is kind of a weird story.”

But you know, there are a lot of things that don’t make sense to us until God explains them to us later — and that is just what Jesus does here in John 3.

Just before He gave us John 3:16, in :14-15 Jesus says:

He was saying, that episode of the serpent in Numbers 21 was a picture, that helps us understand how we are to be saved today.

What did the people of Israel DO to be saved when they were bitten by those snakes?

They didn’t really “do” anything, did they?

All they did was believe the message, and look to that thing uplifted on that pole, and if they believed enough to look at it to save them, then they were healed.

This is a picture of salvation by faith.

They didn’t really “do” anything to save themselves; they just LOOKED BY FAITH.

And Jesus says here, that is how it is with OUR salvation too.

Jesus, just like that serpent, would be “lifted up” on a cross, and whoever LOOKS TO HIM BY FAITH, believing that He will save them, will be saved!

Just like Israel in the wilderness that day, it’s not that you really “DO” anything; it is just by FAITH, by believing in Him!

II.

“IN HIM”: the object of faith

But those last two words are vitally important as well: “Whoever believes IN HIM” shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

“IN HIM” is a key.

See, we have to understand that it is not just “faith” that saves us; it is faith “IN HIM” that saves.

See, “faith” is a ability that all people everywhere possess.

“Faith” just means to believe something; to trust some one or something.

Everyone in the world exercises faith in many things every day — even the atheist!

We have faith that the sun will rise in the morning;

we have faith that when we flip the switch, the light will come on;

we have faith that if we get a shot, it will help prevent or cure an illness;

we have faith in all kinds of things.

So we all exercise faith, every day.

But what we have to realize is that faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed.

People put their faith in all kinds of things that let them down:

Not long ago an investment manager who had taken the retirement funds of hundreds of people — they trusted him to invest their money safely for them — but he lost their money.

They had faith in him, but their faith was misplaced.

This kind of thing happens all the time: people put their faith in someone or something — and they really had faith — but a faith is only as good as the object in which the faith is placed.

That is especially true when it comes to religion.

People talk about faith in religion as if it is all equally good.

You hear people use the expression: “They are a person of faith” — as if it doesn’t matter WHAT their faith is in, as long as they have this thing called “faith.”

But just like in every other area of your life, WHAT you have faith IN, MATTERS.

It is not enough to just “believe”; you have to believe in the right thing.

Back in the 1990’s, hundreds of people in Waco, Texas believed that David Koresh was the Messiah.

They trusted him as their master, and sold their possessions and followed him to his compound and lived according to his teachings.

When the FBI raided their compound and killed Koresh, several of them indicated that they believed that he would rise from the dead on the 3rd day.

They had faith; but their faith was only as good as the man their faith was placed in.

David Koresh’s grave is still there in East Texas to this day, showing us that their faith was misplaced.

So it is not enough to just “have faith.”

WHAT your faith is IN, is vitally important.

And the Bible tells us that the only object of genuine saving faith is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Himself said

John wrote:

God’s word says your faith must be in Jesus in order to be eternally saved.

Nothing else would have saved the Israelites in the wilderness that day other than faith in the serpent lifted up on the pole.

Nothing else will save you TODAY but faith in Jesus lifted up on the cross.

Your faith must be in Jesus to save.

III.

“WHOSOEVER”: the invitation of faith

The opportunity to have saving faith in Jesus is open to anyone.

This verse says: “WHOEVER believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“Whosoever.”

In the original Bible language, it is literally “ALL the ones believing in Him”.

The point is: if you will believe, in Him alone, then you will have your sins forgiven and have eternal life.

The invitation is open to everyone.

We already saw a couple of weeks ago how “God so loved the WORLD” — the whole world, the sinful world, the ethnic world — that people of every kind, every sin, every person, can be saved.

This invitation is for all it is for everyone who will believe:

Jesus said here; “WHOEVER believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

He said in :15,

Listen, it doesn’t matter: it’s for rich; poor; young; old; American; Indian; “down & out”; “up and out” — The gospel of Jesus Christ is for all these “whosoever s”.

The old hymn has it right: “Whosoever surely meaneth me”!

“Whosoever” you are, the gospel of Jesus is for YOU — if you’ll just believe it!