Sermon-God so loved the world

The Kiss, Edvard Munch, 1897

A sermon given during a service of Holy Communion at St Olave Hart Street on Sunday 1st March 2026, the Second Sunday of Lent based on readings from Romans 4:1–5, 13–17 & John 3:1–17

The risk with phrases we hear often is that we stop really hearing them at all. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say (!)

At the start of today’s service, the choir sang John Stainer’s setting of John 3:16 — perhaps the most quoted verse in the English-speaking Christian world:

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

In Stainer’s setting, the music begins with gentle assurance. Settled harmonies. Then, in the final phrase a subtle dissonance enters. Reminding us that God’s love is not tame, not simple, not something we can neatly contain or fully understand. The music mirrors the message of the words: this love has consequences, it invites response, it is transformative. And it is given freely.

We need that reminder because we live in a world that measures everything.

Grades and exam results. Targets and performance reviews. Attendance figures and growth charts. Even our leisure time is measured – steps and calories, goals tracked, time optimised.

In this season of Lent, often without admitting it, we measure ourselves.
Am I doing enough?
Have I achieved enough?
Have I become enough?

Worth equated with performance. Identity to output. This worldly logic turns faith into something to accomplish — pray more, understand more, serve more, improve more.

Today’s gospel offers a startling corrective to this exhausting striving.

Before you achieve — you are loved.
Before you understand — you are loved.
Before you improve — you are loved.

That is not a call to sloth or laziness. It is the revolutionary message of the gospel.

Paul makes that clear in his letter to the Romans. He turns to Abraham — the great patriarch, the father of Israel. If anyone could claim spiritual credentials, surely it would be Abraham. And yet Paul insists that Abraham was justified not because of what he did, but because he trusted.

Think about Abraham’s situation. He is promised descendants as numerous as the stars. Yet he and Sarah are old. Way too old to have kids. A beautiful – and impossible – promise. Humanly speaking, according to the logic of the world there is nothing to work with here. No hope. And yet Abraham trusts the promise-giver.

Not flawlessly. Scripture does not sanitise his doubts or struggles. But fundamentally, he leans onto God rather than onto himself.

And Paul draws the breathtaking conclusion: righteousness is credited not to the one who works, but to the one who trusts.

“God gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

That is who God is. How he operates.

Not by rewarding what is impressive, but by creating life where there was none. Not by endorsing human strength,
but by sustaining fragile faith.

Abraham’s story is not primarily about his belief but God’s divine initiative. God makes a promise before Abraham has a hope of producing anything.

Next, we meet Nicodemus.

A Pharisee. A teacher of Israel. A serious, thoughtful, disciplined man. He has devoted his life to understanding God’s law and living it faithfully. If righteousness were attainable by effort, Nicodemus would be well on his way.

And yet he comes to Jesus at night.

Perhaps because questions feel safer or come more easily in the dark.
Perhaps because reputations are easier to protect when fewer people are watching.
Perhaps because something in him knows that, despite all his knowledge, he remains unfulfilled.

Nicodemus recognises that Jesus has come from God. He sees the signs. He acknowledges the authority. But he does not yet understand the nature of the kingdom.

And Jesus doesn’t respond by offering Nicodemus more books or scrolls to study.

He talks about birth.

“Unless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Birth is not an accomplishment. It is not a reward for effort. It is not a badge of honour.  It is something we receive. New life from nothing. It involves vulnerability. Dependence. A relinquishing of control.

Nicodemus struggles with this response. He has spent a lifetime striving for religious competence. Jesus invites him instead into spiritual dependence.

And then comes that verse — so familiar that we risk missing its depth.

“For God so loved the world…”

The word “so” in this context meaning “in this way.”

God loved the world like this: He gave.

A costly generosity. Initiative taken when none was deserved.

And who received this generosity? The whole world.

Not “the deserving.”
Not “the spiritually promising.”
Not “the morally consistent.”

The whole world — with its confusion, violence, indifference, ambition, fear. The world that resists God – the world that will crucify the most perfect expression of love.

God loved the world like this: He gave.

That is the start of creating everything out of nothing.

Lent is a season when we are invited to return to that beginning. To strip away illusions of self-sufficiency, the anxieties we carry, our tiresome striving.

The gospel does not begin by demanding that we fix ourselves - because we can’t. It begins by announcing that we are loved.

Before we are ready.
Before we deserve it. Before we understand.

The new birth of which Jesus speaks is not about self-improvement. It is new life from nothing.

And this new life has consequences. The dissonance in Stainer’s music hints at that. This love is not safe and sound. It leaves us changed.

If God loves the world like this — by giving — then those who are born from above begin to reflect that same pattern.

We give with open arms rather than grasp tightly onto what we have.
We forgive rather than retaliate.
We hope rather than despair.
We act with compassion rather than indifference.

Not because we are morally superior. But because we are loved first.

The Christian life does not begin with “Try harder” but with “Receive.” Receive the love that precedes us.
Receive the grace that sustains us.
Receive the life that we could never manufacture.

Abraham trusted a promise he could not see fulfilled.
Nicodemus was invited into life he could not intellectually master.
We are invited into love we can never earn.

And so we hear the words again — not as a slogan, or cliché  — but as the beating heart of this new life:

“For God so loved the world…”

In this way.

Before you strive -  you are loved.
Before you succeed — you are loved.

Before you understand — you are loved.

That is the new life into which we are born.

So perhaps the invitation this Lent is simpler than we imagine.

Not: try harder.

But: receive.

Receive the gift.
Live from it.
And love the world — not because it is easy, but because God does.

Amen.

Image : The Kiss, Edvard Munch, 1897