The most amazing love is his covenant love, his choosing a people for himself and bringing them to faith and making them

to faith and making them personally his forever.

To know yourself loved this way is the greatest experience of all.

And many Christians have been taught not to receive this love

or to believe that it exists, which is a great tragedy.

What is God's covenant love for you as his child?

That's the question John Piper answers from John 3.16 in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on May 10th, 2009.

The issue in this message is,

what does the love of God in John 316 mean?

For God so love the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have

eternal life and it is so important that we not bring our native preconceptions, not learned from the Bible of love to the Bible to make the Bible mean what we think love

means. We should humble ourselves and ask what do you mean God. Help me with the wider context and the fullness of your

revelation to know what you mean by loving us in this verse. There are a few great things that are very obvious are they not. Number one,

God loves the world. That is, he loves the world, that is he loves the great totality of fallen human beings, all of them.

Number two, this love is of such a kind, such an intensity, such a magnitude, that it moved

him to give his son to die for the world.

Number three, one incontestable purpose and effect of that love is whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

In other words, this love opens the door so that anyone who believes will have eternal life.

Number four.

Therefore, this love is indiscriminate. It may be spoken to, promised to, applied to,

everyone without exception because that is what it says.

...