John 3:34-36  

³⁴ For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

Limitless

If you were given the ability to learn anything about everything in a short amount of time, what would you try to learn? If this ability lets you intake infinite amounts of information without the restriction of forgetting the knowledge you attained or the limitation of having to repeatedly perform the actions necessary to master something, what are the things you would start learning?

Given the power of quickly learning anything with the infinite memory capacity, some might learn how to get good at playing an instrument and become the next musical savant. Others might learn the inner workings of how the stock market works to gain financial wealth and live comfortably for the rest of their lives. 

As humans, we are limited in our ability to retain information on a specific subject matter and only a select few can master and become experts on something. Even then, they are only capable of mastering one, two or three things. They are limited to being an expert to their field of expertise but for Jesus…

3. He has the Spirit of God without limit

³⁴ For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 

God, who is a Spirit, has a Spirit to give Jesus without limit. Jesus’ access to God is unlimited. It is infinite. Immeasurable!

APPLICATION:

We believe that the Holy Spirit is co-equal with God the Father and God the Son. The Holy Spirit is of the same essence, yet He is also distinct from them. Scripture describes the Holy Spirit in personal terms, not as an impersonal force.

The Bible says that the Holy Spirit teaches, guides, comforts, and intercedes. He possesses emotions, intellect, and will. The Scriptures also attest to the deity of the Holy Spirit. He is spoken of as God.

The Christian who is indwelt by the Spirit is indwelt by God. The Holy Spirit possesses the attributes of deity, such as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence and eternality.

He does works only God can do, such as creating, regenerating and sanctifying. The Holy Spirit is equally associated with the other members of the Trinity.

The Holy Spirit today plays a major role in the application of salvation to the individual.

It is the Spirit who brings conviction to the unbeliever and causes him to see the truth of the Gospel in a clear light.

Those who respond to this conviction and place their faith in Jesus Christ receive eternal life and a new nature. The Holy Spirit unites the believer with Christ and places him in the body of Christ, the church.

He also unites the believer with Christ in His death, enabling him to live victoriously over sin.

The Holy Spirit controls the believer who yields to God and submits himself to God’s Word.

When these conditions are met, the believer lives in the power of the Spirit and produces the fruit of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit indwells the believer permanently. While the child of God may sin and grieve the Spirit, the Spirit will never leave the true believer.

The absence of the Holy Spirit is the mark of the unsaved. The Holy Spirit seals the believer. This ministry guarantees the security of the believer “until the day of redemption.”

The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is the evidence that you have Jesus reigning in your heart… that you have Jesus as the master of every decision you make.

The fourth credential Jesus has that we are learning tonight is…

4. He has the Father’s love

³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

John 5:20  For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

John 10:17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.

Notice here that the verb ‘LOVES’ is in present tense which is continuous in nature. Compared to John 3:16 which is in the past tense.

What does that present tense indicate in your understanding?

      God’s love in John 3:16 is completed and fixed.

      Does that imply: no more addition or subtraction?

      I will leave that for you to decide and ponder upon.

If you were to search the original term used for the word ’LOVES’ here in relation to God’s love, you will find that there are few recipients of God’s continuous love.

John 16:27 …the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

God loves those who have loved Jesus and have believed that Jesus came from God

2 Corinthians 9:7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Hebrews 12:6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Psalm 146:8 …the LORD loves the righteous.

Psalm 37:28 For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones…

The last but not the least credential of Jesus is from our passage is…

5. He has the eternal life for believers

Before I discuss about eternal life which I believe you know much of, let me take you back to verse 36.

³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejectsthe Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

It is very clear that Jesus has caused division here between those who have eternal life and those who are under the wrath of God.

Who are those under the wrath of God?

According to the NIV, they are those who reject the Son.

The verb ‘REJECTS’ used by NIV is very limiting in its meaning. It may mean those who do not believe.

ISV and NLT and other translations used the phrase

‘DISOBEYS’ or ‘DOES NOT OBEY’ which is a stronger way

of describing those under the wrath of God because disobedience includes even the Christians.

Is it because of our disobedience that sometimes we feel like God is punishing us?

Is it because of our disobedience that sometimes we feel like God is far from us?

Let’s try to understand the phrase ‘believes in the Son’

The word believes here connotes entrusting, having confidence in.

You entrust your money in the Bank or Credit Union because you have confidence in the institution that your money is safe there.

One Evangelism Explosion trainee testified that before she trusted in Jesus as her personal Lord and Saviour she was afraid to travel. If possible, she just wanted to walk anywhere she goes because she did not trust in Bus Drivers.

APPLICATION:

Believing in Jesus needs trusting in Him.

We say we trust Jesus for our eternal life, but we cannot trust Him with our earthly possessions or material things.

We think and are proud to say that we trusted Jesus for our eternal life, which by human standards we cannot understand thoroughly—but we cannot trust Him with earthly decisions. We decide about many things on our own then ask God later. When we are down and beaten and find we cannot do anything, that’s when we ask God for help.

We must be disillusioned if we say we trust Jesus for our eternal life when we are so disobedient to His words.

We must be disenchanted if we say we have trusted Jesus for our eternal life when we do not even trust Him that He speaks through the Bible, through sermons, through prayers, or through other church members.

1 John 5:10 All who believe in the Son of God know in their hearts that this testimony is true. Those who don’t believe this are actually calling God a liar because they don’t believe what God has testified about his Son.

CONCLUSION:

We have good reasons for trusting Jesus Christ as our Lord, our Master, the Boss of our life—both life on earth and life eternal because:

1. He has the authority over all things
2. He has the credibility to testify
3. He has the Spirit of God without limit
4. He has the Father’s love
5. He has the eternal life for believers

Are you getting to know Him more and more?

As you know Him and acquire knowledge about Jesus, obedience to Him will have to grow in a more intense way. What areas of your life need to be surrendered to Him? What areas have you not trusted Him fully for?

><((‘> .. ><((‘> … ><(((“> tmec\lmms <“)))>< … <‘))>< .. <‘))><